section_path: Government and politics/Human rights
section_name: Human rights
paragraph_text: Human rights
  
  Australia has generally strong protections for civil and political rights and the country has signed up to a wide range of international rights treaties. Important documents protecting human rights include the Constitution, the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Age Discrimination Act 2004. Same-sex marriage has been legal in the nation since 2017. Unlike other comparable western democracies, Australia does not a single federal charter of rights in the Constitution or under legislation; however the ACT, Victoria and Queensland have state based ones.
  
  International organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have expressed concerns in areas including asylum-seeker policy, Indigenous deaths in custody, the lack of entrenched rights protection and laws restricting protesting.