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Why a Human Rights Act matters

PRIVACY STATEMENT The information you provide in this survey helps us understand the diversity of people who engage with BEING and improve how we support and include people with lived experience. Your responses are confidential and will only be reported in de‑identified, aggregated form.
The root causes of mental health challenges are not addressed by the mental health system. A range of determinants, like housing insecurity, economic and financial insecurity, social isolation and loneliness fall outside clinical care. These determinants are everyday examples of when human rights are not respected, and the mental health system has currently little capacity to address this. Meanwhile, the system often defaults to coercion and control.
The problem: Rights without remedy
We all know we have human rights, and we know when those human rights are breached. Human rights can be breached for many reasons, but the underlying issue is we don’t have ways to address situations when you feel like your rights have been breached.

• 1 in 2 mental health consumers in NSW feel that their human rights were not respected
• 1 in 5 mental health consumers agree to treatment out of fear of involuntary treatment
• 1 in 2 lack the support needed to make informed decisions about their care.

It’s little wonder that 91.7% of mental health consumers in NSW say they have experienced discrimination, and 1 in 2 don’t feel part of the community.

NSW remains an outlier in the Australian eastern seaboard. Queensland, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory ALL have human rights legal protections, but in NSW we don't.
We are asking people to complete this short survey to better understand how BEING can advocate for a Human Rights Act in NSW.
The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.
The information you provide in this survey helps us understand the diversity of people who engage with BEING and improve how we support and include people with lived experience. Your responses are confidential and will only be reported in de‑identified, aggregated form.
Part 1: About You
1.Do you have lived and/or living experience of mental health challenges?(Required.)
2.What is your age?(Required.)
3.How would you describe your gender identity?(Required.)
4.Do you identify with, or have you experienced, any of the following? Tick that all apply.(Required.)
5.Do you live in:(Required.)
6.What is your postcode?(Required.)
Part 2: Knowledge and the model
7.Did you know that NSW does not have human rights legal protections?(Required.)
8.Do you think the NSW Government should be legally required to consider human rights when making decisions?(Required.)
9.How should we make sure the NSW Government takes your human rights into consideration? Pick all the ideas you like best.(Required.)
Part 3: Rights & Enforcement
10.What would help with building a stronger culture where human rights are respected? Please pick your top two choices.(Required.)
11.Do you think there is currently adequate support for mental health consumers to make informed decisions about their care?(Required.)
12.How do you think mental health consumers can be better supported to make informed decisions about their care? Examples can include training for treating professionals, police and ambulance offices, or guidelines for kin, carers and families.
13.Please rate how important each of these human rights are to you (1 = not important, 5 = essential)(Required.)
1 (not important)
2
3
4
5 (essential)
Decision-making: Having the support needed to make your own choices about your life and healthcare.
Freedom from coercion: Being treated with dignity and protected from inhumane, cruel or degrading treatment.
Democratic Participation: Being able to have your say in society.
Community Connection: Staying connected to your culture, family, kin, and chosen community.
Health Equity: Getting the same quality of physical and mental healthcare as anyone else.
Economic Safety: Having a secure home and enough money to live with dignity.
Work & Education: The right to pursue a career or study with the accommodations you need.
Freedom from discrimination: Knowing you’ll be treated equally no matter who you are.
Peer-led recovery: Having people to talk alongside you that have gone through similar experiences.
14.Are there other human rights that are important to you that we haven’t asked about? There’s no need to be technical, just describe the human right/s using language that makes sense to you.
Part 4: Engagement
15.What would help you to understand more about how a Human Rights Act for NSW will protect mental health?(Required.)
16.If you are a mental health consumer, do you want to join BEING as a member (it’s free) to stay updated?(Required.)
17.If yes, please provide us your best email so we can send more info about BEING membership.
18.Occasionally we like to use anonymised quotes from surveys in our advocacy to illustrate a point. (This means we include the quote but without including your name.) Please indicate if you consent to BEING using any of your written answers in this way.