A human right you can be stripped of on a whim is not a right at all. It is a favour. And right now, the Victorian Government can take that favour back whenever it chooses.

Victoria has its own Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. It is meant to protect every person in this state — your freedom of speech, your freedom of conscience, your right to a fair trial, your right not to be harmed by the government that is supposed to serve you. But the Charter has a loophole. Under section 31, Parliament can issue an “override declaration” and pass a law that bypasses the Charter entirely. In plain terms, the government wrote itself a permission slip to ignore your rights whenever it finds them inconvenient.

That is the problem. A charter the government can switch off is not a shield. It is a suggestion.

This is not about left or right. It is about a simple truth: rights only mean something when they cannot be cancelled by the people they are meant to restrain. When the government marks its own homework, the people always come last.

We have already seen where this leads. The Corrections Amendment Act 2026 rewrote a basic right — one hour a day in the open air — so a failing prison system could dodge a court ruling. The anti-vilification laws rest on a vague “harm” test that puts ordinary speech and honest faith at legal risk. The change or suppression law reaches so far it can treat a parent’s private conversation with their own child as a crime. Different issues. Same pattern. A right named on paper, then overridden in practice.

The core of human rights is simple, and it is negative.

A negative right is the right to be left alone by the state. The right not to be locked up without cause. The right to a fair trial. The right to think, believe and worship freely. The right to speak. The right not to be tortured or treated cruelly. The right to privacy. The right to be equal before the law. These do not ask the government to give you anything. They ask it to leave you be. That is exactly why they matter most, and exactly why a government keen on control is always tempted to override them.

These are not radical ideas. They are the oldest and plainest freedoms there are.

The demand is simple. A charter the government cannot override.

I will fight to close the override loophole and put your rights beyond the reach of any minister looking for a shortcut.

Here is what that means in practice:

• No future Victorian government can pass a law that bypasses the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.
• Every existing law that overrides the Charter is amended to comply with the minimum non-derogable human rights that belong to every person in Victoria.
• Every future law must comply with the Charter, especially the simple negative rights that protect you from the state itself.
• The section 31 override power is repealed, so no Parliament can switch off your rights again.

A government that can override its own human rights charter offers no real protection at all. It offers protection right up until the moment protection becomes politically awkward — and then it takes it away. That is not good enough for the families, the workers and the ordinary people of this state who simply want a government that keeps its word and stays within its limits.

Your rights should not depend on the mood of the government of the day. They should hold, every time, for every person.

Sign the petition. Put human rights beyond the government’s reach.

Add your name to close the override loophole and restore real human rights protection in Victoria. Then share it with a friend, a workmate or a neighbour who believes a right you can lose on a whim was never a right at all.