Kevin Rudd had the groundwork, the evidence and the political moment for a Human Rights Act – and still walked away. Anthony Albanese now has the same opportunity, and no obvious excuse not to take it.

My guess is that the political hardheads around Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet table (who of course double as Labor’s factional leaders) see a national Human Rights Act only as an opportunity to lose votes.

Labor’s thumping election majority has not been diminished in the nine months since it was achieved. The threat of the next Coalition campaign scare is still safely away in the distant future. Now is about the time, as former NSW Premier Nick Greiner nominated, that one does all the unpalatable, but right, things when one is in power.

But the Albanese team seems intent on window-dressing rather than making the effort to properly sell what is fine product – one it can claim as its own.

Window-dressing? How else to view Mark Dreyfus’s consolation prize after being dumped by aforesaid factional deadheads from the ministry. Dreyfus, KC, has been appointed our special envoy on human rights to take, in the PM and Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s words, “a special advocacy role” on various issues “on which Australia has a long record of international leadership”. So, we’ll tell others what they should do, but do effectively nought here at home?

Not only is the timing right, but all the spadework has been done, too.

A parliamentary committee report on ‘Australia’s Human Rights Framework’ was tabled in May 2024.........

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