December 2021 A reform agenda for federal discrimination laws 1.1 How has the national conversation project progressed? The national conversation project was announced on 10 December 2018, Human Rights Day, andcommenced in early 2019. In 2019 the Commission: • released an Issues Paper – setting out consultation questions for the national conversation2 • released three Discussion Papers – on federal discrimination law reform; framing of rights; and accountability mechanisms for human rights at the national level3 • conducted the Free and Equal national conference on human rights4 • convened a series of roundtables with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr Michelle Bachelet • convened a series of roundtables with Professor Manfred Nowak, and hosted the Pacific launch of the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty In 2019 and into 2020, the Commission opened a public submission process for the Discussion Papers as well as conducting consultations nationally. We received over 160 written submissions, with 190 people participating in national consultations. The Commission also convened a series of technical workshops on key thematic issues: • August 2019: Ensuring Effective National Accountability for Human Rights Workshop convened in partnership with the Human Rights Institute at UNSW • May 2021: Technical workshop on improving parliamentary scrutiny of human rights, convened in partnership with the Castan Centre for Human Rights at Monash University and the University of Adelaide • October–December 2020: roundtables and industry consultations on federal discrimination law reform with industry, unions, government, community legal centres and legal aid agencies, academics, barristers, and NGOs • April–June 2021: roundtables on the positive framing of human rights and the key elements of a federal Human Rights Act. 14 FREE AND EQUAL An Australian Conversation on Human Rights