The Australian government expanded its abusive refugee and migrant policies in 2025, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026.
Despite 2025 election pledges to uphold international refugee law, the government initiated a plan to deport refugees and migrants it labels “noncitizens” to the Pacific island of Nauru and passed new laws that deny them the right to basic procedural fairness.
“The Australian government’s Nauru deportation deal escalates rights violations against refugees and migrants,” said Annabel Hennessy, Australia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Australia undermines its global reputation as a rights-respecting democracy by outsourcing its obligations to refugees and migrants to third countries.”
In the 529-page World Report 2026, its 36th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion writes that breaking the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. With the human rights system under unprecedented threat from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on rights-respecting democracies and civil society to build a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.
- Australia has seen increasing racism. In December, two gunmen killed 15 and injured at least 42 in a mass shooting of people celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah in Sydney.
- Rights violations against children in the youth justice system went unaddressed. Three Australian jurisdictions have removed the international law principle from their legislation that children should only be detained as a last resort.
- Australia’s state of Victoria passed landmark legislation to establish the nation’s first treaty with Indigenous peoples. The treaty is a historic step for upholding Indigenous peoples’ rights, including their right to self-determination.
- In its foreign policy, Australia has pursued an uneven approach to protecting and promoting international human rights. It has pledged to prioritize accountability for Afghan victims of human rights violations, and in December announced a sanctions framework for Afghanistan. It has also enforced targeted human rights sanctions on a number of individuals and foreign entities including from Russia, Iran, and Israel. However, few concrete measures were taken to press the Chinese government on grave human rights violations or confront its extraterritorial targeting of critics abroad, including Australian nationals.
Australia remains the only Western democracy without a national human rights act or charter. The Australian government should promptly introduce a new national human rights act, Human Rights Watch said.
