Regardless of our level of vulnerability, all of us deal with government agencies that make decisions that affect our lives. For example, when attending school, accessing healthcare or aged care, obtaining an ID, interacting with the police, paying off a fine, claiming benefits, traveling in and out of the country, using public transport and so on. A Human Rights Act will apply to all of these areas. It would support decision makers to consider human rights in a way that is more appropriate to individual circumstances, rather than taking an inflexible, blanket approach to administration. It would protect against arbitrary or unfair decision making. A Human Rights Act would also set up a safety net in case a member of the ‘majority’ should slip into a more vulnerable group – due to unemployment, accident, mental health issues, family circumstances, or any other reason. Indeed, we all experience various forms of ‘vulnerability’ throughout our lifetime – for example, we all experience childhood, and expect to grow old. A Human Rights Act would be there to protect us, our family members and our communities during periods of vulnerability and disadvantage, safeguarding us from inequity, disregard or maltreatment at the hands of public entities with power over us. The two following case studies collected by the Human Rights Law Centre show how Human Rights Acts at the state and territory level have improved decision making regarding renting, an issue that affects many Australians. Family violence and renting Tenants Queensland used the Queensland Human Rights Act to help a single mother who had experienced domestic violence to avoid eviction. The tenant’s housing provider had sought to terminate her lease for serious breaches caused by her ex-partner who refused to leave the premises. Tenants Queensland assisted the mother to draft a letter of complaint under the Human Rights Act and submissions in response to the application for termination. The tribunal granted an adjournment which allowed the parties to negotiate a transfer of tenancy. The housing provider then withdrew the application for termination. Extracted from Human Rights Law Centre, 101 Charter Cases, 2022.7 New human rights challenges will also continue to emerge, for example in relation to technological change, Australia’s ageing population, and the effects of climate change. Importantly, as COVID-19 has highlighted, there are times when the rights of every single person may be directly affected by government decisions for an extended period of time in response to an emergency. This also happens on a smaller scale in the context of responses to floods and fires. We must be prepared for the impacts of these eventualities on people and communities – by building in consideration for human rights at all levels of government. FREE AND EQUAL A Human Rights Act for Australia 2022 69