Who is popular today?

Liberal backbencher Kevin Andrews says Australia is considering adopting a Magnitsky-style act, designed to ensure human rights abusers cannot spend their ill-gotten gains within Australia.

The law came to public attention after human rights lawyer Amal Clooney appeared before an Australia inquiry to urge the government to ramp up economic sanctions on human rights abusers.

Parliament's bipartisan Foreign Affairs Committee has considered introducing powers that could possibly freeze assets and impose travel restrictions on individual human rights violators.

Australia would be following the United States which imposed sanction on 94 individuals from countries, including Iraq and Uganda, through the Global Magnitsky Act.

Mr Andrews told Sky News the law would help stop criminals from spending money within Australia.

“People who engage in human rights abuses often are also engaged in corruption,” he said.

“The funds they get from that corruption they don’t want to spend in their own countries, they want to spend it in countries like Australia.

So, this is a way of trying to stop that occurring, to put in place some barriers to human rights abusers.”