Human rights are protected under Australian law in three key ways; statute law, the constitution and common law. It could be argued that if Australia adopted a bill of rights, human rights would be more clearly defined, consistent in all states and territories and more easily understood.
Human rights are protected in Australia through statute law. Statute law refers to laws made by parliament, also known as legislation. Moreover statute laws set up administrative bodies whose responsibility it is to carry out the workings of these acts.Occasionally, judges are required to interpret legislation or make decisions about the application of statute law. These decisions will have binding impacts on human rights protection. Examples of statute laws that protect human rights in Australia include the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW), the Sex-Discrimination Act 1984 (cth) and the Racial-Discriminations Act 1975 (cth). The HREOC is one of the administrative bodies that are extremely effective in protecting human rights. An example of this involved the case of Scarlett Finney in 1998. In this case they found that the Hills Grammar School discriminated against Scarlett Finney on the ground of her disability by refusing her enrolment to the kindergarten class at the school in 1997 in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (cth). The Hills Grammar School refused the enrolment of Scarlett Finney because they did not have the facilities for her and that it would be hard to get the facilities due to financial concerns. The commission determined declaring that the school pays the sum of $42,628 to Mr. and Mrs. Finney as trustees for their daughter Scarlett Finney, on or before 28 days from the date of publication of this decision. The commission also determined that the school let Scarlett Finney into their school. The NSW Ombudsman is another administrative body that can protect human rights, it investigates and reports complaints about the conduct of