What do Australians value?
Opinion piece by Law Council President, Tania Wolff, first published in Lawyers Weekly, 23 April 2026. 
Last week, the federal opposition unveiled the first wave of its Australian Values Immigration Plan.
At its centre is a proposal to make compliance with the Australian Values Statement a universal visa condition.
This is not a minor administrative change. It would transform the statement from a set of principles that must be acknowledged by visa applicants, into binding legal requirements governing their continued stay in Australia.
Shared values matter. They help bind a diverse, multicultural nation together.
And to be clear, the Values Statement contains principles most Australians would support: respect, tolerance, compassion, and equality of opportunity – the essence of what we often call a “fair go”.
There are real concerns about giving this statement binding legal force, particularly given its broad and sometimes imprecise concepts.
There’s also the fundamental question of whether it actually reflects the values we hold.
In its current form, the answer is no.
Some elements are selective. Others are incomplete. And some risk of being misleading.
Take its description of the rule of law: “all people are subject to the law and should obey it.” By itself, this is not the rule of law. It is closer to rule by law – or the use of law as an instrument of control.
The rule of law, properly understood, is both more demanding and more protective.
It requires that all people are equal before the law, regardless of status or power.
It requires that governments themselves are bound by the law and held accountable when they exceed it.
And it guarantees that every person has the right to a fair and impartial hearing before an independent court.
Yet the statement says nothing about the courts. Nothing about judicial independence. Nothing about the role of the law in protecting individuals from the state.
A new arrival could be forgiven for thinking the law exists only to command and punish – not to protect, constrain power, or uphold their rights.
That is not in the Australian tradition.
The statement also tells visa applicants that Australian society values “parliamentary democracy whereby our laws are determined by parliaments elected by the people”.
That is true – but incomplete.
It omits a defining feature of our system: that Parliament does not have unlimited power.
Under our Constitution, laws are subject to limits – and those limits are enforced by an independent judiciary. Parliament and the executive must act lawfully and can be held to account by the courts. The ultimate arbiter of those limits is the High Court of Australia.
This separation of powers is not a technicality. It is a safeguard against overreach – a core protection in any liberal democracy.
Even The Castle – one of our most beloved Australian films – understood that much.
The statement’s treatment of human rights is similarly narrow.
It identifies three freedoms: religion, speech, and association.
Each is fundamental. But none is absolute – and they are not the only rights Australians value.
It omits core rights long recognised in international law and accepted by Australia: including, for example, equality and non-discrimination, the right to a fair trial, rights to health and education, and the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
These are not peripheral ideas. They are central to a just society.
Yet we still lack a federal Human Rights Act to give them consistent protection in domestic law. If values are to be enforced, they must first be fully and honestly articulated.
This is the moment for a national conversation about Australian values – not as a slogan, but as a constitutional and civic reality.
If we are going to ask those who seek to build their lives here to embrace these values, we must ensure they reflect the principles we genuinely uphold.
Because the question is not only what we ask of new arrivals.
It is what we expect of ourselves.
Last Updated on 13/05/2026