Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How we treat the most vulnerable among us reflects the values we uphold as a society. This Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2024, now in its fifth iteration since 2017, falls short of these values. Despite minor amendments, it remains deeply flawed and its passage would compromise the rights and dignity of individuals already in highly precarious situations.

This legislation aims to expand the search and seizure powers of detention offices, including confiscating mobile phones. These measures allegedly address safety concerns, yet the evidence does not adequately support such sweeping powers. Instead, it risks exacerbating the situation for detainees, who are already detained for an average of 513 days—nearly 1½ years—sometimes without any criminal conviction.

The Human Rights Law Centre has highlighted how these expanded powers will isolate detainees further, cutting them off from their families and legal counsel. I understand the government's arguments about bikie links and such, but human rights still apply. Mobile phones are lifelines for detainees, many of who are held in facilities far from loved ones. Confiscating personal devices disrupts communication, delaying access to legal support critical for challenging detention or ensuring accountability.

Existing laws like the Migration Act 1958 already grant detention offices powers to manage risks, including searching for and seizing contraband, while police are equipped to handle serious crimes. Claims of endemic criminality among detainees lack sufficient substantiation. While some do have prior convictions, some pose no security risk. They are not all the same. For those who do have a criminal history, provisions may well be warranted, but they must be specific and targeted, not catchall. Even the Human Rights Commission report into the Yongah Hill centre, which this bill leans heavily on, notes the complexity of different cases and different environments.

It's important to manage the risks that staff face in detention facilities—that is absolutely true—but these provisions lack oversight and could easily be misused. Past inquiries into similar legislation, such as the mobile phone ban bill 2021, concluded that current frameworks are sufficient. Yet this bill broadens powers, permitting invasive strip searches and arbitrary confiscations under vague terms like 'order' and 'safety'. Such measures, disproportionately targeting asylum seekers, are inconsistent with Australia's human rights obligations.

As the member for North Sydney perfectly articulated, Labor's support for this bill is a significant shift from its previous stance on provisions to prohibits items like mobile phones in detention facilities. For example, in both 2017 and 2020, Labor senators voiced strong opposition to the bill's provisions, stating:

… the government has not demonstrated any attempt to address these risks in less restrictive ways than those proposed in the bill.

They also emphasised the critical importance of detainees' access to communication, asserting:

… the evidence highlights the importance of mobile phones in allowing detainees to communicate with their legal representatives and external support networks.

I couldn't agree more.

Labor's support for this new iteration of the legislation directly contradicts its earlier positions, raising questions about the party's commitment to detainees' rights and the principles that it previously championed—not to mention the fact that the crossbench was briefed on this today, in the last sitting week of the year. What a surprise! And, while the bill claims to provide safeguards, the alternative communication options it proposes, such as landlines or shared internet terminals, are inadequate. Landlines in detention centres are few and communal, restricting timely or private communication. Internet access is scarce and must be booked in advance, making urgent legal matters nearly impossible to address.

Access to communication is not a privilege. It is a basic right, particularly for those seeking asylum or justice, and providing dumb phones is not enough. Stripping detainees of the right to communication risks silencing voices that hold power accountable and amplify stories of mistreatment.

At its core, this bill reflects a troubling willingness to compromise human rights in favour of administrative convenience. With detainees already subjected to significant restrictions, adding further layers of control risks stripping away their dignity entirely.

Instead of punitive measures we should focus on strengthening oversight, accountability and transparency within detention centres. Evidence based policies are the solution to safety concerns, not sweeping legislation treating all detainees as threats.

This bill echoes the failed approaches of past administrations, prioritising control over compassion. Australians have a responsibility to uphold human rights and fairness, and this legislation fails that standard. I will not support it.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government introduced this bill, the Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2024, on 21 November 2024, just last week, and it is the third of a suite of bills with which the government appears to be on a very rapid race to the bottom in its attempts to mimic the draconian efforts of the last government to treat the most vulnerable people—people seeking asylum in this country—in a fashion which is not humanitarian, is not generous and does not recognise or reflect the values of electorates like the one I represent.

I want to note for those constituents of Kooyong who are watching tonight that this is not a new bill. This is the fourth time that this bill, or an iteration of it, has been brought to the House. The first time was in 2017 when Peter Dutton was the immigration minister. The bill was reintroduced in 2019 and 2020, and on each occasion it failed to pass because of a significant backlash from not only the other sides of the House but also the community. In fact, when the ALP wrote a dissenting report in 2020, essentially to this very bill, it noted the extent of community backlash and, really, revulsion about the premises of the bill. That actually led to a community petition signed by 140,000 Australians expressing their disgust at the measures that we're discussing with this bill. They had the opportunity to do that because this is a democracy and in a democracy people have a right or an ability to give feedback about things the government is planning that they care about. But citizens are denied that right when a bill is put before the House with this degree of haste.

What would this bill do? The bill would essentially give the minister sweeping powers to ban almost any item in a detention centre. Those items would include everyday items like mobile phones. The bill has the ability to cut off from their loved ones and from their crucial supports people who are vulnerable and already in a place they do not want to be, who are subjected to conditions in their life they do not want to live within. It would limit their ability to hold the government responsible for the circumstances of their detention. Under this bill as it is laid out, the minister can determine that almost any item is a prohibited item. They could be things that are illegal and which could be the subject of criminal activity, but they could also be things the minister believes might be a risk to the health, safety or security of people and the detention facility or to the 'order' of the facility, whatever that might be.

The bill also expands the basis for officers in the detention centre to undertake invasive strip searches. It gives broad new powers for officers to conduct area searches within the centre, which could include examination of people's rooms, their personal effects, common areas or even medical examination areas. And officers within the detention centres will be able to use force to conduct those searches. They can bring dogs or other external people in to help them. They can confiscate items they believe have been banned. It doesn't matter whether or not the person has been shown to have actually misused their phone in the past or to have engaged in any conduct which has put other people at risk. If the officer feels this is a reasonable thing to do to reduce any risk to health, safety, security or order in the detention facility then the officer can do that. We can imagine how that power might be misused by people who don't necessarily have inmates' best interests in mind. The bill also gives the minister the ability to issue blanket directions about the exercise of search and seizure powers within detention centres.

I think it's important to note that many of these powers are actually already in the hands of the minister and people who run the centres. They already have search-and-seizure powers if they are dealing with illegal or dangerous items in a detention centre. We have to remember detention centres aren't prisons. But the distinction appears to be moot in the context of this legislation. The minister and officers are already able to undertake those searches and those seizures under the Migration Act under their common law duty of care, and we have to remember as well, remembering that these are not prisons, that these centres are in many instances being staffed by contract personnel who are not subject to the same rules or, shall we say, degree of oversight as police people or ABF. I think it's really important that we note that people who are in detention shouldn't have to exist under a harsher regime just because of their visa status. These people are not criminals. Now, some of them, we're told, have been guilty of criminal activity within the detention centres that we are discussing, but, if that's the case, the people running those centres have the ability to resort to the criminal justice system. The mere fact that that sort of activity might be taking place is not a justification for changing the rules around the places themselves. Were that the case, then you could argue that similar powers should be given to teachers in schools, where very often illegal activity is undertaken, or a music festival or any other spot where people undertake illegal activity.

I think, at the end of the day, we have a duty to first do no harm to people who are vulnerable in our justice system, whether that be the criminal justice system or the immigration system. It's worth us remembering that, between 2019 and 2024, there were more than 700 episodes of self-harm by people in immigration detention centres in this country and there were 29 deaths. It's hard to imagine the imposition of the rules that the government has put before us with such a lack of due diligence, consultation or community feedback. They will hurt people who are vulnerable and who already, just by the circumstances that lead to them finding themselves in these immigration detention centres, lack the power and the agency that ordinary Australians have.

It's also worth remembering that this particular bill that has been put in front of the House with such short notice is only one of three significant bills that the government is pushing through with unseemly haste at this point in time. We've recently seen the Migration Amendment Bill, which has imposed ankle bracelets and curfews on prisoners, we've seen our government arranging to pay other sovereign states to take our noncitizens—but we don't have a whole lot of clarity about what that involves—and we've seen the government reviving its deportation bill as well.

This is not the sort of Labor government that many of us expected when Mr Albanese became Prime Minister, in 2022. Many Australians expected a government which would be more just and more generous. Gandhi said, 'The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.' This treatment is not reflective of the Australia that I know, that I love and that I hope to represent.

Question unresolved.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As it is necessary to resolve this question, the motion will be returned to the House for consideration.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:57