1. Introduction: Towards a revitalised Human Rights Framework for Australia 1.6 The Free & Equal process The scope of the Free & Equal project has been wide and ambitious. To cover such a wide field envisaged in the Terms of Reference, the Commission divided the scope of work into 3 parts: • discrimination law reform • developing a model Human Rights Act • accountability mechanisms. To launch the project, the Commission held the Free & Equal national conference on human rights, featuring the personal attendance of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, HE Dr Michelle Bachelet, in October 2019.17 Immediately following this, the Commission hosted Professor Manfred Nowak, Independent Expert leading the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, for the Pacific launch of the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty.18 An initial round of consultations for the project were convened with the attendance of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Professor Nowak. During 2019, the Commission released a number of documents to facilitate focused consultation: • an Issues Paper describing the human rights landscape and asking general questions about priorities for reform19 • a Discussion Paper on priorities for federal discrimination law reform20 • a Discussion Paper on the positive framing of human rights through a national Human Rights Act21 • a Discussion Paper on ensuring effective national accountability for human rights.22 The Commission then 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. • 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. • 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. 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. With the outbreak of COVID‑19 in March 2020, the consultation methodology shifted to online meetings and roundtables. In response to the Discussion Papers and in the lead-up to the first Position Paper, Free & Equal: a reform agenda for federal discrimination laws (2021), there were a total of more than 1,000 stakeholders who engaged in the project, inclusive of submissions, consultations, roundtables, technical workshops and the national conference. Prior to the release of the Human Rights Act Position Paper in March 2023, an additional 45 consultations were held with over 200 participants, from legal, business, NGO and public sectors, academia and Parliamentarians. FREE & EQUAL: Revitalising Australia’s Commitment to Human Rights 27