Australian Human Rights Commission
Annual Report 2021–22
The Implementation Framework also lays out four thematic areas with major
priorities (as shown in the table Wiyi Yani U Thangani thematic focus areas), as well
as actions identified under each. This structure provides a focus on the key
interconnected drivers of structural equality identified by women and girls, and
how to support and invest in these drivers into the future.
The final stage (Stage 3) of the project will be delivered next year building on the
previous two stages approach of self-determination and participation in decisionmaking.
Immigration detention, refugee, and asylum seeker programs
Commissioner Lorraine Finlay leads the Commission’s work on human rights
issues affecting asylum seekers, refugees and people in immigration detention.
This involves monitoring immigration detention facilities, conducting research
into and consultation projects on specific issues of concern, and engagement
with the federal Parliament regarding changes to Australia’s migration laws.
In this reporting period, Commissioner Finlay, in her first year as the Human
Rights Commissioner, led a number of immigration detention inspections,
including two ad-hoc inspections of Hotel Alternative Places of Detention (APODS)
in Melbourne and Brisbane. The aim of both visits was to examine the conditions
of detention in Hotel APODs and the broader impacts of detention on people
who were or are still detained. In conjunction with the inspection visits, the
Commission conducted interviews and received submissions from former
detainees and NGOs providing support to APOD detainees.
The need for such an inspection was highlighted by Commissioner Finlay in an
opinion piece ‘Novak Djokovic drew global attention to Australia’s immigration
detention regime. Now we need proper scrutiny of all places of detention’
published on ABC News Online on 20 January 2022.
Keeping kids safe and well – your voices
The Department of Social Services asked National Children’s Commissioner Anne
Hollonds, to seek input from children and families across Australia about how to
keep them safe and well in their homes and communities for the purpose of
informing the first five-year action plan to Safe and Supported: The National
Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2021–2031.
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