Legal Rights Audit 2017

This report illustrates the ongoing erosion of legal rights that persists in Australia. This has been measured by an analysis of the content of all legislation passed by the federal parliament in 2017.

Our research is an audit of Commonwealth legislation passed in 2017, building on research the Institute of Public Affairs began in 2014.

The IPA’s 2014 report ‘The state of fundamental legal rights in Australia’ found 262 provisions which breach fundamental legal rights.

That report focused on the extent to which four such fundamental legal rights are abrogated in current acts of
the federal parliament:

1. The presumption of innocence and burden of proof;
2. Natural justice;
3. The right to silence;
4. Privilege against self-incrimination.

Updates to that research published in April 2016 and February 2017 found there had been a net increase in the number of breaches in federal legislation passed during the 2015 and 2016 parliamentary years, with 307 provisions found at the end of 2016.

This update includes all legislation passed by the Commonwealth parliament in 2017. In total, our research has uncovered 19 new provisions that breach fundamental legal rights in legislation passed in 2017. Just 2 were repealed.

Read the full report here.