The Australian Government’s obligations to uphold human rights are multi-faceted. It is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that rights are respected, protected and fulfilled: • The obligation to respect human rights requires that governments, through their own actions, do not breach human rights. • The obligation to protect human rights requires governments to take actions to prevent others from breaching human rights. Where a person’s rights have been breached, the obligation to protect also requires governments to ensure accessible and effective remedies are available to that person. • The obligation to fulfil human rights requires governments to take positive actions to fully realise the equal enjoyment of human rights. These different obligations reflect that there should be a mixture of actions ranging from legal protections, complaint and compensatory processes, educational measures, communitybased programs and social services to properly protect human rights. Human rights are relevant to all aspects of government and public life, including all interactions that public authorities have with individuals and communities. For example, they apply when individuals access healthcare, welfare and education; when individuals are in prisons, immigration facilities and residential care homes; and when they engage with police, child protection and housing authorities. 46 2.2 Patchy human rights protections (a) Lack of cohesive human rights protections Although Australia has expressed its commitment to rights and freedoms by ratifying key international treaties, it has not taken the step of implementing those obligations fully into domestic law. Australia has no overarching Human Rights Act or Constitutional Bill of Rights, unlike all other liberal democracies.5 This leaves a significant hole in our legal architecture. The rights that are protected are located in scattered pieces of legislation, the Constitution and the common law, forming an incomplete and piecemeal framework, with many gaps. Civil and political rights (as reflected in the ICCPR) are often taken for granted as given protections in a democratic society, yet they cannot always be relied upon by individuals when they are infringed. For example, rights to freedom of religion, privacy and freedom of association are not fully protected in Australian law. Australia has also ratified the ICESCR and other instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which contain education, health, equality and participation rights, among others, that reflect important Australian values and expectations. Yet the rights within these instruments are only reflected in domestic laws to a limited extent, and related services can be withdrawn at any time.6