Queensland is an exceptional place in every sense. It was the first jurisdiction in Australia to consider (but reject) legislative human rights protections in colonial times in the context of anti-slavery debates1 and has a tumultuous human rights history.2 It has been the site of key national human rights decisions such as the Mabo cases in the High Court of Australia,3 and United Nations Human Rights Committee complaints.4 Queensland has struggled with government corruption in the past, with the Moonlight State ABC Four Corners report and Fitzgerald Inquiry in the 1980s still animating good governance and anti-corruption measures in the state today.5

Queensland is the only unicameral jurisdiction in the Commonwealth, it is the only state where the majority of its 5.617 million population lives outside the capital, and it is one of the largest Australian states by geography (1,730,648 square kilometres) with world-renowned natural heritage areas and unique ecosystems.6 Queensland is home to roughly 237,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from over 150 language groups (4.6% of the population).7

Queensland is also the most disaster-affected state in Australia, having been hit by more than 80 significant natural disaster events in the past decade,8 and is already facing intense climate impacts, especially in Far North Queensland. As an Australian state that relies heavily on mining revenue, Queensland is undergoing a transformation of its economy towards net zero carbon emissions9 which has very real human consequences for communities, as will climate adaptation challenges more generally.

The birth of the Human Rights Act 2019 on 1 January 2020 was also exceptional, as it was immediately challenged by the pandemic, requiring many delicate and difficult choices to be made to limit certain rights for public health objectives. As the Caxton Community Legal Centre submission stated, “The pandemic also upended existing processes, services, ways of doing, and long-settled norms.”10

I can attest, having conducted this review and listened to the views of hundreds of Queenslanders, that the Act has helped to promote and protect human rights in Queensland. The Act has generally delivered on the expectations of those community advocates who urged its passing – that it would enhance the quality of Queensland’s democracy between elections for the least powerful, provide a yardstick to measure government actions, assist marginalised people to feel a sense of dignity and standing, and require public entities and leaders to consider the impact of their day-to-day decisions on the human rights of those in Queensland.

But the overwhelming feedback is that the initial momentum has slowed or stalled, particularly in light of the use of the overrides of the Act in the youth justice area. The perception is that, after a rocky start, the Queensland Legislative Assembly, the Government and the Leadership Board have deprioritised the Human Rights Act in recent years and that a renewed surge of support is required to embed a human rights culture in Queensland. This is a similar story to the early years of the ACT and Victoria human rights legislation but perhaps amplified by the pandemic and the early use of the overrides.

The recommendations in this report are designed to address four overarching themes distilled from feedback to the Review.