Scott campaigned extensively on human rights issues in Australia, saying, "My writing is fuelled by me as a totality, but also by my political feelings." With Tom Keneally, she co-edited an anthology of refugee writing, "Another Country", for which she was nominated for the 2004 Human Rights Medal. She was a co-founder of Women for Wik, a group dedicated to reconciliation with Aboriginal people in Australia. In 2013 Scott co-edited another anthology on asylum seekers with Tom Keneally called A Country Too Far with some of Australia's greatest writers including Anna Funder, Geraldine Brooks, Rodney Hall, Christos Tsiolkas, Les Murray, Alex Miller and Kim Scott. It was described as a 'stunning anthology and searing moral work… timely, important and wise.'. In 2014 she started the group "We're Better than This", a broad-based movement against refugee children in detention.