2026-03-18
The Greens welcome the unanimous support from the NSW Parliament to establish an Inquiry into the Greens Bill for a NSW Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Bill 2025 was introduced by the Member for Newtown, Jenny Leong MP, in October 2025.
Today’s action follows a decades-long campaign for a NSW Human Rights Act by a broad alliance of community, legal, and civil society organisations, many of whom make up the 120+ members of the Human Rights Act for NSW Alliance. It also comes after eight members of the Legislative Assembly crossbench, including all three Greens lower house MPs and five independents, wrote to the Premier Chris Minns yesterday urging him to back an inquiry into the Greens Human Rights Bill.
NSW Greens spokesperson for Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination and Member for Newtown, Jenny Leong MP said:
"We enthusiastically welcome the support of the NSW Parliament to refer our Greens bill for a NSW Human Rights Act to an inquiry for public consultation and report.
“In every Australian jurisdiction with a human rights act or charter, a robust public inquiry paved the way for this critical reform – and we look forward to NSW becoming the most recent state to take this path.
“At a time when fractures in our community run wide and deep, and so many are feeling the pressures of everyday life, NSW Parliament is at a critical inflection point: we can choose to offer hope, or we can choose to fuel hate.
“A NSW human rights act would give people from across the community a valuable tool to use to ensure their basic human rights and dignity are respected – and to take action when they are not. It would completely transform the public sector from one in which human rights are an afterthought to one that truly has the community’s best interests at heart.”
“The Greens will always choose hope over hate, and we are glad that the NSW Parliament has backed us - and all those who support human rights - by its actions today.”
Background
More than 120 community, legal and peak bodies in NSW support the call to establish an inquiry into Human Rights Act in NSW, including the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Human Rights Law Centre, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, the NSW Teachers Federation, BEING Mental Health Consumers, People with Disability Australia, Community Legal Centres NSW, the Australia Services Union, the NSW Bar Association, and Amnesty International.
A full list of members of the Human Rights for NSW Alliance can be found here.
Yesterday, eight Members of the Legislative Assembly crossbench – three Greens and the independent Members for Pittwater, Wakehurst, Sydney, Lake Macquarie, and Wagga Wagga – wrote to the Premier expressing their support for the establishment of a Legislative Assembly committee to inquire into the Greens Human Rights Bill.
A NSW Human Rights Act would have positive impacts for all community members, but would have particular benefits in relation to housing rights, child protection, people with disability, cultural rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, and people living in regional, rural and isolated areas.
For case studies that demonstrate how a Human Rights Act has made a real difference to the lives of people in other states and territories, please see here.