The Human Right to Housing in Australia

This paper examines the human right to housing in Australia. Housing rights are among the most pervasive and best developed rights under international law. No country can claim to be free of legally binding obligations in relation to housing rights under international law, particularly when, as in Australia's case, it has ratified most of the major international human rights treaties. Sadly, though, the gap between housing rights rhetoric and realisation is extremely broad in almost every country in the world. Australia is no exception to this, and indeed lags behind much of the rest of the world in many facets of its implementation of these housing rights obligations. This study concludes that Australian governments are in violation of their international human rights obligations relating to housing.