The Human Rights Register, facilitated by the Catholic Commission for Justice, Development & Peace, Melbourne, is an annual Non Government Organisation audit of Human rights developments. The Register records individual reports and accounts of developments and violations and analyses them in the light of the human rights conventions that Australia has ratified. It focuses on individual instances within Australia and contains reports from community legal centres, non-government organisations and the national media.

The need for an audit of Australia's Human Rights developments was recognised in 1997 when a conference of human rights lawyers and NGO's in Melbourne raised concerns about the affects of changes in government policy and legislation. At this time, Australia was four years overdue in reporting to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It was recognised that the United Nations and the wider Australian community needed access to information about what was happening at a grass roots level.

There is an urgent need for the Australian community to recognise the plight of those in the community that are most disadvantaged and marginalised. Each year the Register is used as a catalyst to draw attention to the state of human rights in Australia.