More than 200 people packed into the Brisbane city hall on June 1 for a public forum on why individual rights in Australia needed to be enshrined in a Human Rights Act.
Australia is the only Western country without a national human rights act or a Bill of Rights.
Queensland Council of Social Services president Karyn Walsh said given 400,000 Queenslanders live in poverty and 26,000 are homeless, "we need a stronger way to ensure politicians act. We need legislation, not just policy".
Director of Queensland Advocacy Inc, Kevin Cocks, said: "Nearly every Australian with a disability suffers violation of human rights at some stage of their lives, with little prospect of having perpetrators prosecuted."
Indigenous activist Vicki Roach, who spent four years in a Victorian prison, claimed human rights do not exist in Australia's jails. Only 15% of Victorian female prisoners are assessed as high risk, yet 80% are in high-risk institutions and 89% of inmates have been sexually abused, she said.
National secretary of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union, Dave Noonan, said it is important to realise how one group of workers — construction workers — have less human rights than other workers under current laws.
Penalties of $22,000 for individuals and $110,000 for unions apply for constructions workers involved in legitimate union activity. The Australian Building and Construction Commission has the power to hold secret interrogations of workers. Failure to answer questions can lead to 6 months' jail.
"We do need change, we do need a human rights act", he said.
Dr Linda Selvey, from the Queensland Conservation Council, said care for the environment was very much a human rights issue — including the right to live on a planet not threatened by climate change.
"We do rely on the natural environment, and this should be reflected in a human rights charter", Selvey said.
Professor Spencer Zifcak, from the Australian Human Rights Group stressed that it was critical that we identify the human rights that we desire and enshrine them in law to protect "against abuses by governments and bureaucracies".
A National Consultation on Human Rights, headed by Father Frank Brennan, concluded on June 15. It will report back to the federal government by August.