ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վ

Dear friends,

Protecting people's rights in rural and regional Australia

People living in rural, regional and remote areas of Australia face greater challenges in realising their human rights than people in the cities. So it was good to speak about this at the recent rural, regional and remote community legal centre summit in Port Macquarie.

Jesuit Social Services’ research confirms the higher levels of disadvantage in regional and remote areas across Australia. Common indicators of disadvantage are low income, crime, family violence, early school leaving, a lack of post-school qualifications and a lack of internet access.

Rural Australians are not treated fairly by our health systems. They are more likely to face health problems yet receive less health funding and less access to services than people in the cities. I met with the National Rural Health Alliance earlier this year to talk about their research, showing on average each rural person receives $848 less on health spending per year compared to someone in the city.  This equates to a $6.55 billion rural health deficit across Australia.

Mental health services are a particular concern. In Australia, suicide rates increase as population density decreases. Yet people living outside of the cities have poorer access to mental health specialists, longer wait times for appointments and find it harder to see a GP.

The health challenges can be acute for First Nations people, compounded by issues like overcrowded and inadequate housing. Rheumatic heart disease is a disease of poverty that is entirely preventable and that should be eradicated in Australia. Yet it continues to disproportionately affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – leading to tragic consequences.

In 2019 and 2020, three young First Nations women living in Doomadgee, Queensland died from rheumatic heart disease. A coronial inquest found systemic healthcare failures including failures to provide follow-up care and deliver culturally safe practices. Queensland’s Human Rights Act, which protects the right to life, cultural rights and the right to access health services, played an important role in the  

Access to quality education continues to be a problem for people outside of the cities. The Commission’s Rural and Remote Education Inquiry in the late 90’s highlighted the challenges for rural families in securing a good education for their children, including with issues like recruiting and retaining good teachers in the school community and transport and travel time. The problems continue today as highlighted by . They are compounded for children with needs outside of the mainstream schooling system – including children with disability or who have an Aboriginal language as their first language. The failure to protect children’s right to education in rural and remote communities across the country entrenches disadvantage.

The human rights challenges faced by communities outside of our cities become more acute when they are having to respond to and recover from natural disasters on a regular basis. It has been clear for a long time now that rural, regional and remote areas are on the front lines of climate change and extreme weather events.  

The Commission is undertaking work on human rights issues for people and communities impacted by major floods, storms and bushfires. This work is exposing gaps in emergency response capability, access to insurance and recovery support and demonstrating the connection between climate change, natural disasters and human rights.

People’s right to housing is not achieved if they are spending years living in caravans because of delayed insurance claims and rebuilding processes. Women’s right to safety is not upheld if they are forced to share an evacuation centre with their abusive partner. ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վ’s right to education is not achieved if their schooling is disrupted for months, leading to students falling behind academically and dropping out of school. For rural communities, there is the additional challenge of climate change and disasters impacting the livelihoods of farmers and related industries.  

Almost 60% of First Nations people in Australia live in regional or remote areas. They are disproportionately affected by issues such as lack of access to healthcare, education, housing and employment – compounded by racism and the underlying disadvantage caused by the ongoing impact of former unjust policies like the stolen generations.  

The work of bodies like the Productivity Commission and Victoria’s Yoorrook Justice Commission points the way forward here – shifting power to First Nations communities so that they have more control over how to ensure their families can live good lives with decent and tailored housing, education and healthcare.

Human rights provide a way to prompt government action to improve the lives of people outside of our cities. But human rights are not properly protected in Australia’s laws. Australia has promised under international law to protect people’s right to life, to security of person, to health, housing and education. Australia has promised to protect the right of children to protection in their best interests and the right of First Nations people to culture and language. Australia has recognised the right to a healthy environment.

While Australia has promised to protect human rights in international treaties, these treaties are not directly enforceable in Australia. It is left to Australian governments and parliaments to protect human rights in our domestic laws. Unfortunately, as confirmed by repeated inquires, we haven’t done a good enough job on this. Our human rights safety net has holes in it.  

To give one example, the NSW Education Act has some good principles at the start of the Act in section 4 which reads:

(a)  every child has the right to receive an education…

(c)  it is the duty of the State to ensure that every child receives an education of the highest quality,

(d)  the principal responsibility of the State in the education of children is the provision of public education.

But at the back of the legislation, buried in section 127, it says that nothing in section 4 gives rise to any legally enforceable right.

In other words, the NSW Government and Parliament is happy to talk the language of rights in the legislation but not to hold itself legally accountable to the people of NSW in actually delivering on those commitments. And we know this affects people in the bush more than others.

Human Rights Acts are a way to properly protect our rights in law and help to address the challenges that are too familiar to regional, rural and remote communities.

There is so much that people in the cities can learn from rural communities. As we’ve seen time and time again, rural communities come together in times of need to take care of one another.  

These are human rights values. A Human Rights Act nationally and in all Australian jurisdictions would help to embed these values in our law.

This is an extract of a speech I recently delivered. The full speech is available here.

Connect with me
LinkedIn -
Instagram -