The Australian government expanded its abusive refugee and migrant policies in 2025, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026.

Despite 2025 election pledges to uphold international refugee law, the government initiated a plan to deport refugees and migrants it labels "noncitizens" to the Pacific island of Nauru and passed new laws that deny them the right to basic procedural fairness.

"The Australian government's Nauru deportation deal escalates rights violations against refugees and migrants," said Annabel Hennessy, Australia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Australia undermines its global reputation as a rights-respecting democracy by outsourcing its obligations to refugees and migrants to third countries." 

In the 529-page World Report 2026, its 36th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices inmore than100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion writes that breaking the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. With the human rights system under unprecedented threat from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on rights-respecting democracies and civil society to build a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.

Australia remains the only Western democracy without a national human rights act or charter. The Australian government should promptly introduce a new national human rights act, Human Rights Watch said.

Source: Human Rights Watch