On 29 October 2024, pursuant to section 7(c) of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011, the Attorney-General referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights the following matters for inquiry and report by 31 March 2025:

• the prevalence, nature and experiences of antisemitic activity at universities;
• university frameworks for the prevention of, and response to, antisemitism at universities, including rules, policies and other measures introduced to ensure the safety and wellbeing of students, staff and academics;
• the effectiveness and adequacy of those frameworks;
• the support provided to students, staff and academics experiencing antisemitism at universities;
• international experiences and best practices in dealing with antisemitic activity at universities;
• what policy or regulatory changes are required to better address and prevent antisemitism at universities; and
• any other relevant matters.  

The committee invites submissions in relation to these matters.

The committee intends to hold public hearings. Precise dates and locations will be determined. If the committee has agreed to invite you to a public hearing the secretariat will contact you. Any public hearing programs are decided by the committee. It is a decision for the committee which witnesses are invited to appear at the hearing.

The conduct of this inquiry

Submissions
If you made a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal & Constitutional Affairs’ Inquiry into a Commission of Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities Bill 2024 (No. 2) which was published, you do not need to provide that same submission again here. The committee will consider all the public evidence which was made to that inquiry, and the committee’s report.

Lodging a submission
The deadline for submissions to this inquiry is 20 December 2024. Please lodge your submissions by this date via the secure Parliamentary Online System. You may request that your submission is published as ‘name withheld’ (published without your name) or accepted confidentially (accepted by the committee but not published). If you make such a request, please briefly outline the reason(s) for making that request, noting that it will be a matter for the committee how your submission is accepted.

When your submission has been lodged you will receive an automatic acknowledgement email from the Online System.

Committee consideration of submissions
The consideration and publication of submissions is not an automated process and can take some time, ranging from days to weeks. Submissions become committee documents and are confidential until the committee decides to make them public. You should not distribute copies of your submission until the committee has agreed to publish it.

Once decisions have been made about the submission’s acceptance and publication, you will receive a formal acknowledgement from the committee.

If the committee agrees to accept your submission with your name withheld, your submission will be published on the inquiry webpage but with your name removed. Confidential submissions are not published on the webpage, and are available only to members of the committee. Contact details (email addresses, phone numbers and postal addresses) are not made publicly available in submissions from individuals.

All submissions to parliamentary committee inquiries are protected by parliamentary privilege. If you have made a submission and are concerned that you have been threatened or disadvantaged on the basis of your submission, please bring that to the attention of the committee (by contacting the secretariat) as soon as possible.

More information
More information about the powers of parliamentary committees, and the inquiry process, are available here. Information about the procedures to be observed by committees for the protection of witnesses is available here.

Committee Secretariat contact:

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Phone: 02 6277 3575
uni.inquiry@aph.gov.au

Please note – the Department of the Senate is shut down from 25 December 2024 to 1 January 2025 inclusive. The secretariat will have reduced staff across the December to January period more broadly.