Human rights group Amnesty International urged Australia to end policies it said racially discriminated against Aborigines and asylum seekers, saying the country was failing its international obligations.
In a report to a Geneva-based UN committee monitoring racial discrimination, Amnesty said that Australia's so-called "intervention" in Aboriginal communities to protect the vulnerable was of particular concern.
Asylum seekers, particularly those arriving illegally by boat, have been a key issue of debate ahead of the August 21 poll in which Prime Minister Julia Gillard is running just ahead of her conservative opponent, Tony Abbott.
The government, which has suspended the processing of asylum claims from Afghans pending an assessment of the situation in the war-wracked country, has proposed establishing an off-shore processing centre, possibly in East Timor.
Abbott has spoken of turning back the boats."Refusing to process visa applications from asylum seekers fleeing oppression in war-torn Afghanistan is completely unacceptable," Mallinson said.
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"Regardless of the outcome of the election, the Government of the day must reinstate full legal protections against racial discrimination."
Amnesty's criticism comes after the independent group Human Rights Watch called on Australia's political leaders to ensure that the country's treatment of asylum seekers met international laws and obligations.
"People fleeing desperate situations have a right to seek asylum, and Australia should treat them fairly and respectfully," said the group's acting Asian director, Elaine Pearson.
The plan, which was first rolled out in 2007 under the previous conservative government, introduced compulsory income management and banned the sale of alcohol and pornography in more than 70 Outback Aboriginal townships.
Although the current Labor government, which in 2008 made a historic apology to the nation's indigenous for past wrongs, made some changes to the policy, rights had not been fully reinstated, Amnesty Australia said.
"We are seriously concerned about the impact of what we have found to be racially discriminatory policies against Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people," Amnesty Australia International's national director Claire Mallinson said.
"There are thousands of indigenous Australians who do not have equal rights."
Indigenous communities are the country's most disadvantaged -- suffering higher rates of incarceration, unemployment, illness and child mortality -- but the issue has been largely absent from the election campaign.
