Robin Banks

University of Tasmania · Faculty of Law

We are in an age of rights, in the sense that major social and political movements use the rhetoric of rights (not duties), including women’s rights, Black rights, gay rights, and animal rights. This paper explores runaway rights, the trend of extending rights to more and more domains, and using the language of rights in social contestations. This...

This article examines the strategies used by a democratic state to suppress dissent by criminalizing social protest activities. We compile and tabulate new legislation in Australia affecting protest rights from 2010 to 2020. Using data collected from the Facebook pages of 728 environmental groups and climate-related arrests reported in media articl...

A small internal investigation by the University of Queensland (UQ) Union Disability Collective resulted in a student-led project supported by academics across three Australian universities. The project seeks to gain new insights into the experience of students with disabilities studying at Australian universities. Universities conduct disability s...

This report makes recommendations for the University of Queensland to improve the experience of students with disability in the university context and to fulfil the rights of those students to inclusion and equality of opportunity in education. It does this through presenting the findings of a survey conducted with students with disability in 2022....

This chapter provides insights into the human rights impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and government and legislative responses to that crisis. It considers the impacts on the full breadth of internationally recognised human rights: civil, political, economic, social and cultural. It considers the effect of Australia's absence of comprehensive human...

This report, commissioned by the Human Dignity Trust on behalf of the Equality & Justice Alliance, lays out criteria for good practice human rights compliant laws across four areas of sexual offences legislation, namely rape/sexual assault, age of consent for sexual conduct, treatment of consensual same-sex sexual activity between adults, and sexua...

This article examines the strategies used by some third sector organizations in Australia to advocate. The purpose of this article is to identify the kinds of activities that organizations in New South Wales and Queensland use to promote advocacy, the kinds of language that is used to describe these activities, and the reasons given for the particu...

This report examines the contractual relationship between governments and non-for-profit organisations for the provision of services, particularly employment services. It combines primary and secondary research with detailed legal analysis of a number of key federal government contracts, addressing a critical issue at the heart of the way governmen...

This paper examines the effect of funding contracts on the capacity of third-sector organizations to effectively advocate. The relationship is not simple or obvious, with some organizations reporting 'mature relationships' with particular (state) departments, and others reporting difficulty with state or federal government jurisdictions. The paper...

The focus of this paper is Indigenous stolen wages: the withholding by governments across Australia under a 'trust' arrangement of the wages and other entitlements of Indigenous people and the exploitation of Indigenous labour. Note the use of the word 'stolen' – it is not coincidental. There is a strong link between stolen wages and the removal of...

A number of changes are currently being made at a federal level in relation to the administration of anti-discrimination legislation and the structure and functioning of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). The Human Rights (Legislation Amendment) Bill No 1 1996, now passed by both Houses of Parliament, puts into place the fir...

This essay examines the role of "advocacy" in the recognition, promotion and protection of the rights of people with disabilities. Globally, social movements have developed and utilised a range of advocacy styles to change the status of their group which has a shared characteristic. Such status changes have led to (or been concurrent with) improved...