1Short title
This Act may be cited as the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
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This Act may be cited as the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
Sections 1, 2 and 7 shall come into operation on the day on which this Act receives the Royal Assent.
The remaining provisions of this Act shall come into operation on a day to be fixed by Proclamation, being a day not earlier than the day on which the Convention enters into force for Australia.
In this Act, unless the contrary intention appears:
Aboriginal means a person who is a descendant of an indigenous inhabitant of Australia but does not include a Torres Strait Islander.
Commission means the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Commissioner means the Race Discrimination Commissioner appointed under section 29.
Commonwealth agency means an agency within the meaning of the Privacy Act 1988.
Convention means the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination that was opened for signature on 21 December 1965 and entered into force on 2 January 1969, being the Convention a copy of the English text of which is set out in the Schedule.
dispose includes sell, assign, lease, let, sub‑lease, sub‑let, license or mortgage, and also includes agree to dispose and grant consent to the disposal of.
employment includes work under a contract for services, and cognate expressions have corresponding meanings.
President means President of the Commission.
principal executive, in relation to a Commonwealth agency, has the same meaning as in Part V of the Privacy Act 1988.
registered charity means an entity that is registered under the Australian Charities and Not‑for‑profits Commission Act 2012 as the type of entity mentioned in column 1 of item 1 of the table in subsection 25‑5(5) of that Act.
relative, in relation to a person, means a person who is related to the first‑mentioned person by blood, marriage, affinity or adoption and includes a person who is wholly or mainly dependent on, or is a member of the household of, the first‑mentioned person.
residential accommodation includes accommodation in a dwelling‑house, flat, hotel, motel or boarding‑house or on a camping ground.
services includes services consisting of the provision of facilities by way of banking or insurance or of facilities for grants, loans, credit or finance.
Torres Strait Islander means a person who is a descendant of an indigenous inhabitant of the Torres Strait Islands.
vehicle includes a ship, an aircraft and a hovercraft.
A reference in this Act to an Australian ship or aircraft shall be construed as a reference to a ship or aircraft registered in Australia or belonging to or in the possession of the Commonwealth or a State.
For the purposes of this Act, refusing or failing to do an act shall be deemed to be the doing of an act and a reference to an act includes a reference to such a refusal or failure.
A reference in this Act to the doing of an act by a person includes a reference to the doing of an act by a person in association with other persons.
This Act extends to every external Territory.
Without prejudice to its effect apart from this section, this Act also has, by force of this section, the effect it would have if:
there were added at the end of sections 11 and 13 the words “or by reason that that other person or any relative or associate of that other person is or has been an immigrant”;
there were added at the end of subsections 12(1) and 15(1) the words “or by reason that that second person or any relative or associate of that second person is or has been an immigrant”;
there were inserted in subsection 14(1), before the words “is invalid, the words or by reason that that person is or has been an immigrant”;
there were added at the end of subsection 14(2) the words “or by reason that that other person is or has been an immigrant”;
there were added at the end of subsection 15(2) the words “or by reason that the person so seeking employment or any relative or associate of that person is or has been an immigrant”; and
there were inserted in section 18, after the word “person”, the words “or by reason that a person is or has been an immigrant”.
This Act binds the Crown in each of its capacities.
This Act does not make the Crown liable to be prosecuted for an offence.
This Act is not intended, and shall be deemed never to have been intended, to exclude or limit the operation of a law of a State or Territory that furthers the objects of the Convention and is capable of operating concurrently with this Act.
Where:
a law of a State or Territory that furthers the objects of the Convention deals with a matter dealt with by this Act; and
a person has, whether before or after the commencement of this section, made a complaint, instituted a proceeding or taken any other action under that law in respect of an act or omission in respect of which the person would, but for this subsection, have been entitled to make a complaint under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 alleging that the act or omission is unlawful under a provision of Part II or IIA of this Act;
the person shall be deemed never to have been, and is not, entitled to make a complaint or institute a proceeding under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 alleging that the act or omission is unlawful under a provision of Part II or IIA of this Act and any proceedings pending under this Act at the commencement of this section in respect of such a complaint made before that commencement are, by force of this subsection, terminated.
Where:
a law of a State or Territory that furthers the objects of the Convention deals with a matter dealt with by this Act; and
an act or omission by a person that constitutes an offence against that law also constitutes an offence against this Act;
the person may be prosecuted and convicted either under that law of the State or Territory or under this Act, but nothing in this subsection renders a person liable to be punished more than once in respect of the same act or omission.
Chapter 2 of the Criminal Code applies to all offences against this Act.
Chapter 2 of the Criminal Code sets out the general principles of criminal responsibility.
Approval is given to ratification by Australia of the Convention.
This Part does not apply to, or in relation to the application of, special measures to which paragraph 4 of Article 1 of the Convention applies except measures in relation to which subsection 10(1) applies by virtue of subsection 10(3).
Charities
This Part does not:
affect a provision (whether made before or after the commencement of this Part) of the governing rules (within the meaning of the Australian Charities and Not‑for‑profits Commission Act 2012) of a registered charity, if the provision:
confers benefits for charitable purposes; or
enables such benefits to be conferred;
on persons of a particular race, colour or national or ethnic origin; or
make unlawful any act done to give effect to such a provision.
It is unlawful for a person to do any act involving a distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of any human right or fundamental freedom in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.
Where:
a person requires another person to comply with a term, condition or requirement which is not reasonable having regard to the circumstances of the case; and
the other person does not or cannot comply with the term, condition or requirement; and
the requirement to comply has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, by persons of the same race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin as the other person, of any human right or fundamental freedom in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life;
the act of requiring such compliance is to be treated, for the purposes of this Part, as an act involving a distinction based on, or an act done by reason of, the other person’s race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin.
A reference in this section to a human right or fundamental freedom in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life includes any right of a kind referred to in Article 5 of the Convention.
This section does not apply in respect of the employment, or an application for the employment, of a person on a ship or aircraft (not being an Australian ship or aircraft) if that person was engaged, or applied, for that employment outside Australia.
The succeeding provisions of this Part do not limit the generality of this section.
If, by reason of, or of a provision of, a law of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory, persons of a particular race, colour or national or ethnic origin do not enjoy a right that is enjoyed by persons of another race, colour or national or ethnic origin, or enjoy a right to a more limited extent than persons of another race, colour or national or ethnic origin, then, notwithstanding anything in that law, persons of the first‑mentioned race, colour or national or ethnic origin shall, by force of this section, enjoy that right to the same extent as persons of that other race, colour or national or ethnic origin.
A reference in subsection (1) to a right includes a reference to a right of a kind referred to in Article 5 of the Convention.
Where a law contains a provision that:
authorizes property owned by an Aboriginal or a Torres Strait Islander to be managed by another person without the consent of the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander; or
prevents or restricts an Aboriginal or a Torres Strait Islander from terminating the management by another person of property owned by the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander;
not being a provision that applies to persons generally without regard to their race, colour or national or ethnic origin, that provision shall be deemed to be a provision in relation to which subsection (1) applies and a reference in that subsection to a right includes a reference to a right of a person to manage property owned by the person.
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