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Human Rights Watch has unveiled its 2026 global review, highlighting issues such as the mistreatment of refugees and systemic discrimination, which have negatively impacted Australia’s human rights reputation. Despite these challenges, the report notes that overall freedoms in the country remain largely intact.
The report emphasizes a rise in racial and ethnic discrimination, including antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism against Arab, Palestinian, Indian, and Indigenous communities. These issues appear to be on the rise across the nation.
Released on Wednesday, the report details a series of antisemitic incidents in Sydney and Melbourne during 2024 and 2025. It also references the tragic Bondi Beach terror attack in December of the previous year, where two gunmen allegedly targeted a Hanukkah celebration, resulting in the deaths of 15 people.
The document further highlights a surge in neo-Nazi activities, such as anti-immigration demonstrations in September and an assault on a First Nations protest and gathering in Melbourne, raising concerns about extremist behavior.
Additionally, Australia has been criticized for violating international laws that protect children from incarceration, a measure that should only be used as a last resort, according to the report.
“Three jurisdictions in Australia have passed laws removing this principle,” the report said.
Queensland expanded “adult crime, adult time” laws, treating children convicted of certain offences as adults and subjecting them to harsher penalties.
Victoria announced a plan to introduce similar laws in November, while in Tasmania, children were detained in watch houses, where they couldn’t be separated from adults and staff weren’t trained to work with minors.
“In Western Australia, authorities incarcerated children in a cell block of an adult men’s prison,” the report noted.
More than 700 children are in detention in Australia on a typical day — more than 60 per cent of them are Indigenous.
Indigenous rights more broadly were also in the spotlight, with First Nations children more than 12 times more likely to be separated from their families by government agencies.
Western Australian authorities had removed children from mothers fleeing domestic violence and from parents with inadequate housing, instead of being provided with appropriate support, Human Rights Watch said.
‘Decades’ of violating refugee rights, report says
Australia has repeatedly faced criticisms by international organisations, including in previous Human Rights Watch reports, for its treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
“Australia has violated the rights of asylum seekers for decades by forcibly transferring them to offshore detention, where they face abuse,” the report said.
The right to protest was also under threat, the not-for-profit group said.
On the international stage, the report said Australia failed to take action against serious human rights abuses, including providing “few concrete actions to press China on serious domestic rights violations or address China’s extraterritorial targeting of overseas critics of the government, including Australian nationals”.
China was found to be systemically denying freedom of expression, association, assembly and religion and persecuting dissidents.
The Albanese government was also inconsistent in its support for international law, the report said, pointing to a failure to sign up to a statement expressing support for the International Criminal Court after US President Donald Trump sanctioned it.
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