Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There was a need for that data to be made transparent not just to members of this parliament but also to the public and to the many community organisations that support the unlawful non-citizens in this country.

Recommendations 1 to 5 in this report focus on the infrastructure of detention centres. The committee reiterated that the reconstruction of stage 1 of Villawood remains an urgent priority for this committee. Villawood was never a purpose-built facility. It has had extensions and alterations made to the facility over time. Old buildings have been closed off from use and fences put around them. This facility is in desperate need of modernising and adapting to better suit the needs of those detainees.

The committee also recommended the upgrade of the Perth IDC as it has been proposed that it proceed. This is the one facility I did not get to visit with the committee, but I certainly support the committee’s recommendations based on their observations and the evidence given by persons who are involved with that IDC of the need to proceed with that upgrade. But, given the limited lease arrangements, the Australian government, as recommended by the committee, should also examine long-term options with the intent to establish a purpose-built long-term facility.

The committee recommends that detention in immigration residential housing should certainly be used in lieu of detention in immigration detention centres provided that it is feasible, as these facilities are much more suitable to manage a healthy environment for the detainees and would assist in the transition for those detainees from those centres into the community upon release. The committee also recommends that the razor wire and barbed wire fencing be removed from all detention centres and replaced with more appropriate fencing.

We had the opportunity to go to visit a recently built prison in Canberra that I personally thought would be of benefit to committee members who had not previously visited a prison to give us a perspective and see what our detention centres’ facilities and infrastructure are like compared to those of a modern prison. I was certainly surprised to see that our modern prisons have taken a much softer approach to their security. There was no visible barbed wire in the outer perimeter fence; it was actually just a normal perimeter fence that had sensors on it so it could alert security if it were breached. There was no electrification of that fencing; there was no barbed wire on that fencing. In fact, with those security measures—the electrification and wiring—I do not think there was much barbed wiring in the new prison, but any electrified fencing was actually situated at the top along the gutter lines of the properties within the prison and was a lot less visible than what we had seen in every detention centre that we visited—not just Villawood, but even most modern detention facilities such as the North West Point immigration detention centre. In relation to that centre, the new North West Point immigration detention centre, the committee has recommended that all caged walkways, perspex barriers and electrified fencing be removed from the facility and replaced with more appropriate security infrastructure.

When I am asked how to describe that facility, after I attended inspections of the facility with the committee, I had to say that what immediately came to mind was the movie Jurassic Park. The massive perimeter fencing, the electrified wiring going all the way up the external perimeter fencing, the multiple internal perimeter fences in addition to the external one, and the steel framed doors and buildings were all very confronting. I have never felt claustrophobic—I have been down mines and I have been in very small places—but I have to say that while standing in the North West Point immigration detention centre I felt extremely confined. Every door is sealed. There are big, steel framed doors which, we understand, cannot be painted on—they have not been able to find any substance that will stick to that steel so that the facility can have a much softer look. It was quite confronting, and it was an experience to go through that facility knowing that it was a new, modern facility and that is the way we had sought to make this facility look.

The committee observed that the security measures implemented at this detention centre on Christmas Island are, in our view, extreme and inhumane. This is despite the fact that this facility was purpose-built and modern. The committee has recommended that if the centre is to be used on an ongoing basis more permanent measures are required to reduce the internal security to a more appropriate level—some of those are listed in the recommendations. If our new prisons are able to have such an approach then we should certainly be able to provide more appropriate levels of security and fencing for a detention centre than that which currently exists at the North West Point detention centre.

Recommendations (6) to (9) go to the provision of services in detention facilities. Without taking this chamber through the specific recommendations, overall the committee felt strongly about the need to have a full review of the current immigration detention service providers and of the immigration detention facilities within the next three years. It is recommended that this review be conducted by an independent auditor, the Australian National Audit Office. Much work needs to be done to improve the support services that are provided to our detainees in detention centres. This includes mandatory ongoing training for all staff so that they are better trained and are assessed as competent to deal with cultural appropriateness and sensitivity issues, basic counselling skills, first aid, managing conflict through negotiations and to provide appropriate security measures. It is difficult for the staff, we understand that. A number of staff of have come from the prison system and so come with that culture in relation to how they manage the detainees—it is important that we provide an appropriate level of training to support them.

The remaining recommendations deal with greater transparency and visibility. What the committee has recommended is access for the Australian Human Rights Committee—full access for this committee to the detention centres. We have also recommended access for the media. Of course this has to be subject to privacy laws and to the rights of detainees but if we are to have true accountability and true transparency with our detention centres and the way we deal with unlawful non-citizens, we need to make these centres much more open to the public so they can see what is happening. We need to publish the number of detainees who are there and we need to have consistent public media protocols for every detention centre.

In closing, it is pleasing to see that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, has already provided leadership in the area of immigration reform. I believe that the recommendations of the committee provide further opportunity for the minister to make positive changes into the future. This will ensure that Australia focuses not only on the security of the nation but also on our role as a humanitarian nation. I would like to thank the secretariat for all their work in relation to this inquiry and the production of the three reports. I would also like to thank and acknowledge the great work of the chair of the committee, Michael Danby, the member for Melbourne Ports, and also Danna Vale, the member for Hughes.

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