(b) Domestic remedies The passage of a Human Rights Act would ensure that human rights actions can be heard and determined in Australia, in accordance with Australian law and procedures. In many cases, a person in Australia who claims that the government has breached their rights under one of the core international treaties cannot obtain an enforceable remedy. Currently, Australians need to rely on complaints to the Commission, as a precursor to complaining to certain international bodies if the Commission cannot resolve the complaint (a ‘communication’). Without the option of proceeding to a court or tribunal, there is no Australian body capable of providing appropriate, binding remedies at the federal level. The UN Human Rights Committee has confirmed that Commission processes cannot be characterised as ‘effective remedies’ under the ICCPR because the Commission’s recommendations are not binding.130 An increasing number of people have resorted to making human rights complaints to UN treaty bodies. It is incongruous that Australians must go to New York or Geneva to get their domestic rights claims heard. This was recognised by the New Zealand High Court in Beigent’s Case, when it held that there was a right to remedy under the New Zealand Bill of Rights. Justice Casey commented: Toonen v Australia (1994)134 In 1991, Nicholas Toonen, a homosexual man from Tasmania, sent a communication to the Human Rights Committee. At that time, homosexual sex was criminalised in Tasmania. Toonen argued that this violated his right to privacy under Article 17 of the ICCPR. He also argued that, because the law discriminated against homosexuals on the basis of their sexuality, it violated Article 26. As a result of his complaint to the Human Rights Committee, It would be a strange thing if Parliament ... must be taken as contemplating that New Zealand citizens could go to the United Nations Committee in New York for appropriate redress, but could not obtain it from our own Courts.131 In a significant number of cases, treaty bodies have found that Australia has breached the human rights of people within its jurisdiction.132 However, the decisions of such bodies are not binding on Australia and can, and have been, ignored. Remedy Australia reports that Australia has met its obligations to remedy human rights breaches in only 12% of individual communications decided against Australia by the Human Rights Committee.133 This means that a person’s efforts to seek a remedy for a human rights breach may be extremely timeconsuming, expensive and ultimately fruitless. Other international processes also offer little recourse for victims of human rights violations by Australia. Recommendations made by United Nations special rapporteurs and resolutions passed by the United Nations Human Rights Council are unenforceable. The following case studies are examples of complaints made by individuals to international human rights mechanisms, with mixed results. Toonen lost his job as General Manager of the Tasmanian AIDS Council (Inc), because the Tasmanian Government ‘threatened to withdraw the Council’s funding’ unless Toonen was fired.135 The Human Rights Committee did not consider Toonen’s communication until 1994, but it ultimately agreed that, because of Tasmania’s law, Australia was in breach of the obligations under the treaty. In response to the Committee’s view, the Commonwealth Government passed a law overriding Tasmania’s criminalisation of homosexual sex.136 FREE AND EQUAL A Human Rights Act for Australia 2022 91