International recognition for the Commission’s COVID-19 Disability and Human Rights Guidelines In August 2020, the Commission published the Guidelines on the Rights of People with Disability in Health and Disability Care during COVID-19 (Guidelines). Commissioner Gauntlett has been a member of the Australian Government’s Advisory Committee on the Health Emergency Response to Coronavirus (COVID-19) for People with Disability since its establishment in April 2020. The Advisory Committee developed the Management and Operational Plan for COVID-19 for People with Disability, and Commissioner Gauntlett was invited to develop human rights focused guidelines to support the plan. The Guidelines examine the rights outlined in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that may be at particular risk during a pandemic and provide practical examples for practitioners and people with disability. The Department of Health commended the Guidelines to Australia’s professional medical associations, as well as private hospitals and providers. The global and ongoing nature of the pandemic has meant that the Guidelines have garnered an international audience, for example: • Mr Gerard Quinn, the newly appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, communicated in unsolicited feedback that he would be drawing on the Guidelines in his academic writing on the impact of the pandemic. • The Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions profiled the Guidelines in its March 2021 report, Protecting Disabled People’s Rights during COVID-19: Good Practice from Across the Commonwealth. The report highlights the Guidelines as an example of providing guidance on good practice. Legal information and resources Reports to the Minister under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth) When the Commission receives a complaint of a breach of human rights or workplace discrimination (other than unlawful discrimination under the Discrimination Acts), we attempt to resolve the complaint through conciliation. If conciliation is inappropriate or unsuccessful, and we find that there has been a breach of human rights or that the matter amounts to workplace discrimination, then we may prepare a report of the complaint for the Attorney-General. When the Commission receives several complaints raising the same or similar issues, it may prepare one report focusing on the systemic issue raised by the group of complaints. In this period, the Commission prepared 6 reports to the Attorney-General. Each of these reports is published on the Commission’s website. The following report dealt with the use of force against a person in immigration detention: Annual Report 2020–2021 Australian Human Rights Commission 57