Making Rights Real: The Promise and Potential Pitfalls of the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld)

The commencement of the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) on 1 January 2020 heralded a new era in public sector decision-making in Queensland, and the community has high expectations of a regime that obliges the three arms of government to consider people’s human rights when performing their functions. How do we achieve the Act’s objective of building a genuine human rights culture within the public sector? How can the Act make a real difference to the lives of those people most in need of human rights protection? This article, written by the Queensland Human Rights Commissioner, addresses these questions and provides an overview of the Queensland Human Rights Commission’s plan for the successful implementation of the Act in Queensland. The article is an edited version of a Twilight Seminar presented to the Faculty of Law at Bond University on 6 February 2020.