• Limited protection of rights The Australian Constitution provides only limited safeguards for individual rights and freedoms. These are framed, however, through the lens of limitations on legislative power – and largely through arguing about the implications of such limitations. They are not about personal rights.45 These include: • the right to compensation on just terms in the event of a compulsory acquisition of property by the Commonwealth46 • the right to trial by jury for a federal indictable offence47 • the right to challenge the lawfulness of decisions of the Australian Government in the High Court48 • a prohibition on making federal laws that establish a religion, impose a religious observance or prohibit the free exercise of any religion49 The Constitution does not protect against authorised indefinite detention In the 2004 case of Al-Kateb v Godwin,56 the High Court of Australia was asked to decide whether the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (Migration Act) authorises the indefinite detention of an unlawful non-citizen when there is no real prospect of their removal from Australia. The Court found that a law that resulted in a person being held in immigration detention indefinitely was constitutionally valid. Mr Al-Kateb was twenty four when he arrived in Australia by fishing boat, without a valid visa. He was taken to Curtin Immigration Detention Centre in the Western Australian desert. Mr AlKateb’s application for a protection visa to stay in Australia was rejected. The Department 50 • a prohibition on making federal laws that discriminate against a person because of the state in which they live50 • the implied right to freedom of political communication51 • the implied right to vote.52 The High Court has rejected suggestions that other basic rights, like the right to equality, are implied by the text of the Constitution.53 Even for those rights that are protected by the Constitution, either expressly or by implication, the Australian judiciary has generally interpreted them narrowly.54 The High Court has not supported the proposition that, in cases of ambiguity, the Constitution should be interpreted consistently with human rights.55 In combination, these factors mean that the Australian Constitution offers very limited protection for human rights, and few constraints on the ability of the federal Parliament to pass laws that breach human rights. of Immigration tried to remove Mr Al-Kateb without success. Mr Al-Kateb was held in immigration detention for years, with no idea when he would be freed. In the High Court, Mr Al-Kateb argued that the Migration Act should be interpreted consistently with Australia’s obligations under the ICCPR, which protects the right to liberty and prohibits arbitrary detention.57 The majority of the High Court found that the words of the Migration Act clearly required Mr Al-Kateb to be detained until he could be removed from Australia, regardless of the fact that there was no reasonable prospect of this happening in the foreseeable future. Because the majority decided the words were unambiguous, they did not consider