Australia's treatment of refugees and Aboriginal people has received scathing criticism in a report by human rights organisation Amnesty International.

In its annual review of global human rights violations, released yesterday, Amnesty singled out Australia for the mandatory and indefinite detention of asylum-seekers and for continuing to "violate the rights" of its indigenous people.

Aborigines, it said, were being driven off traditional lands because of insufficient funding for housing and essential services such as water and sanitation.

Australians should realise "the first peoples of Australia are being treated in an appalling manner", said national director, Claire Mallinson.

She said she visited the Northern Territory community of Utopia last year with the organisation's secretary-general, Salil Shetty.

"He was visibly shocked by what he saw. People in Australia living without water, without toilets, without showers."

Some had no electricity or garbage collection.

The report said Aboriginal people were being "effectively forced to abandon traditional homelands to access essential services".