Background

The Labor Party won a second-term majority government in federal elections in May.

On 14 December, 15 people were killed in an attack on a Hannukah celebration at Bondi beach, Sydney. In the aftermath, state and federal governments committed to address antisemitism and racism and further regulate gun ownership laws.

Indigenous Peoples’ rights

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continued to face inequality. Only four of 19 national “Closing the Gap” targets were on track, while outcomes worsened for adult incarceration, children in care, suicide and childhood development.

Thirty-four Indigenous people, most of them men, died in custody in 2025, while recommendations from the 1991 Royal Commission remained unimplemented.¹ A coroner’s inquiry into Kumanjayi Walker’s 2019 death in police custody found systemic racism in the Northern Territory police.² Indigenous women continued to experience disproportionate levels of domestic and family violence.

Children’s rights

Indigenous children were 23 times more likely to be under youth justice supervision and 27 times more likely to be in detention, despite making up only 5.7% of the population aged 10 to 17 years.

The Northern Territory amended the Youth Justice Act to reinstate the use of “spit hoods” in youth detention and remove the principle of detention as a last resort.

State governments in Victoria and Queensland expanded “Adult Crime, Adult Time” laws, exposing children to harsher prison terms, including life sentences and raising concerns of increased Indigenous incarceration.³

Refugees’ and migrants’ rights

Unlawful refugee policies continued, including indefinite detention in Australia and “offshore processing” of asylum applications in Nauru, where over 90 people remained, many with serious health conditions. Although processing in Papua New Guinea formally ended, fewer than 30 men remained stranded there after 11 years, barred from entering Australia and suffering severe mental and physical ill-health without adequate healthcare.

New legislation circumvented a High Court decision by stripping asylum seekers of due process.⁴ The law forced their cooperation with deportation, retrospectively validating unlawful visa decisions. The government signed a new 30-year AUD 2.5 billion deal with Nauru, enabling the deportation of hundreds of affected people, and potentially thousands more. By November, three people had been deported under the agreement.

Temporary Pacific workers on the Pacific-Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme were exploited and treated unfairly.

Right to a healthy environment

The government continued to approve fossil-fuel projects, including extending the life of the country’s largest offshore gas project to 2070. It failed to meet Paris Agreement obligations to support lower-income countries with climate change, address loss and damage, and protect people domestically. Its 2030 emissions target remained far below that needed to limit warming to 1.5°C. Climate groups deemed the new 2035 NDC – 62-70% emissions reduction from 2005 levels – insufficient.

Despite dismissing the “Australian Climate Case”, the Federal Court acknowledged that the Torres Strait Islands environment, people and culture were being “ravaged by human-induced climate change” and that climate change posed “an existential threat to humanity”.

Freedom of expression and assembly

Authorities conflated peaceful protest with violent acts of hate. The New South Wales (NSW) state government passed laws allowing a ban on protests for up to three months following the Bondi beach attack. Anti-protest laws targeted people demonstrating against the genocide in Gaza. Following a reported surge in antisemitic violence, the federal parliament passed the Hate Crimes Act, imposing mandatory minimum sentences. NSW police seriously injured a woman at a Gaza demonstration.

Universities also curtailed freedoms. Thirty-nine adopted a definition of antisemitism based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition, despite concerns raised by academics and civil society groups that it was incompatible with standards on freedom of expression and could stifle freedom of speech and assembly on campuses. The University of Melbourne banned indoor demonstrations, surveilled Wi-Fi users and disciplined students for peaceful pro-Palestine actions. In December, the Victoria state government banned protesters from using attachment devices such as glue, rope and locks, and restricted protests around places of worship.

In December, children under 16 were banned from keeping or opening accounts on certain social media sites.

1. “Australia: Amnesty Australia condemns police brutality causing the death of 24 year old Aboriginal man”, 29 May ↩︎
2. “Australia: Statement on coroner’s findings regarding Kumanjayi Walker’s ‘avoidable’ death in custody”, 9 July ↩︎
3. “Australia: Queensland government’s ‘Adult Crime, Adult Time’ laws a violation of children’s rights”, 21 May ↩︎
4. “Australia: The Anti-Fairness Bill: Removing fundamental rights for up to 80,000 people”, 4 September ↩︎