(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
Around 200 Australian organisations are turning to the United Nations to voice their concerns over Australia's human rights performance.
They've co-authored a report which will be presented to the UN's main human rights body in the lead up to a periodic review of Australia that takes place every four years.
Brianna Roberts has the details.
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Every four years the United Nations conducts a human rights audit for all 193 members states.
The UN calls it the Universal Periodic Review - Australia's first and most recent completed in 2011.
Since then, Australian governments have implemented a number of the UN's recommendations.
However, a collection of non-governmental organisations say they're concerned Australia is moving backwards on some issues - including on the treatment of asylum seekers and Indigenous incarceration rates.
They've submitted a report to the UN outlining their concerns, ahead of the next review in November this year.
Les Malezer is from the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, a co-signatory to the report.
Mr Malezer says Australia needs to strengthen its human rights commitments.
"We're hoping that we'll be able to embarrass, the Australian government enough to have the government saying well it needs to do better on the international scene. I think in the past few years the government has turned its back on its role in the United Nations. We're hoping that will change, and to treat the issues as serious, and to give a lot more account to civil society and the role that it has in ensuring human rights obligations are met."
The Australian Council of Social Services has also put its name on the report to the UN.
Tessa Boyd-Caine from ACOSS says it outlines a number of disturbing trends occurring in Australia.
"One in eight adults, and one in six children, even more concerning are now living in poverty, and those levels have been rising. But also in addition, we've seen a number of measures that the government is trying to introduce at the moment that would really worsen the situation. So we've seen moves to reduce the level of access to income support payment, particularly for young people. We've also seen really serious cuts to the services to support people living in poverty."
The Universal Periodic Review is conducted by the UN Human Rights Council, which has been critical of Australia in recent years, particularly over its treatment of asylum seekers.
It recently prompted Prime Minister Tony Abbott to retort by saying Australia was sick of being lectured by the United Nations, after a UN report found that some of Australia's asylum seeker policies could be in breach of international laws against torture.
Anna Brown from the Human Rights Law Centre says the Abbott government must change the way it engages with the UN Human Rights Council, which Australia is seeking to join in 2018.
"We're hopeful that this review will see a break in the tone of the Australian government, a change in the way that Australia has been engaging with the United Nations in recent times. this is a review by other countries around the world, so its not experts in human rights treaties, it's not a special rapporteur on torture, so we're hopeful that Australia will engage constructively with its peers from around the world."
