Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak to the Migration Amendment (Maintaining the Good Order of Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2015 and put very clearly on the record the Greens' objection to the bill. I participated in the Senate inquiry into this piece of legislation and, having watched how previous pieces of legislation have been pursued in this place, I will be moving a number of amendments that go to dealing with some of the worst aspects that currently exist within our immigration detention network—namely, the lack of mandatory reporting of abuse and assaults, particularly involving children; media access to detention facilities; the secrecy provisions that have been introduced under the new Border Force Act; and training standards for guards, which relates directly to the principles of this piece of legislation.

The Migration Amendment (Maintaining the Good Order of Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2015 has revealed a deluge of concerns from the community, human rights advocates and legal experts. The bill confers excessive immunities and powers upon authorised officers, without adequate safeguards. The government have not been able to control the behaviour of people who work within these facilities already. Just this year, questions at Senate estimates have revealed that, in the three months between February and May this year, there were 15 sexual assaults inside the detention network, two involving children, and 259 assaults of a non-sexual nature, 11 involving children. There have also been numerous well-publicised incidents of guards who have physically assaulted and abused asylum seekers within their care on both Manus Island and Nauru. If the government cannot control things as it is, if they cannot control the appropriate behaviour of staff as it is, then why on earth should we be asked to trust that giving officers in these places even more excessive powers would be acceptable?

We also know that there have been at least a dozen requests by the media for access to detention centres in the last financial year and that all 12 of these requests were denied by the immigration department. Even though media are able to request to be able to visit detention centres and can sign up to all of the protocols as outlined by the immigration department, not one journalist was given access to any of Australia's immigration detention facilities. These are facilities that are shrouded in secrecy. The staff are gagged from speaking out when they see things that are going on that are wrong. The media are locked out, and asylum seekers are silenced from being able to speak for themselves and tell their own stories about what is going on inside.

The passage of the Border Force Act 2015 recently means that any staff who dare to speak out publicly or above their superiors in relation to abuse, ill treatment and poor conditions inside detention facilities can be jailed for two years. We have this ridiculous situation where there is no mandatory reporting requirements for security officers—the staff who are on the ground floor, face-to-face with asylum seekers—to report abuse when they see it; no mandatory reporting for those staff. Yet, for everybody else, including guards, but whether they be doctors, nurses, social workers, mental health workers or people who work in such facilities, if they see a child being abused or an asylum seeker in the care of the contractors being assaulted, they are not allowed to raise it and they are not allowed to speak out. The only way that those people can report those abuses is to their managers. We know that once this threat of jail, of prosecution, has been put directly to these staff, people are intimidated from speaking up and speaking out by virtue of the fear of what will happen to them and their jobs.

Detention centre staff are subject to very, very strict confidentiality clauses in their contracts. Staff are gagged from saying what goes on in these places, even when it comes to issues of child abuse and assault. Given the extreme level of secrecy, there is absolutely no way that the Australian people, or indeed parliamentarians, can trust that the government has control of what goes on in these places in the best interests of the individuals who are meant to be being cared for.

There is no way that we can trust that each person employed in these facilities will always act within proper responsibilities. And here we have before us a piece of legislation that effectively gives force powers to security officers who have no more training than a certificate II. That is the same training, of course, as a nightclub bouncer. Yet, the immunities that come within the provisions of this bill and the signal it sends to staff that force is, effectively, okay set up a very, very dangerous context and circumstance.

This bill has been on the Senate table for a number of months now and there have been many, many concerns raised by members of the community and by experts in the field of immigration law and in the general provisions of how facilities like this operate. Because of that, we do not support the passage of this bill. Here are a number of the key reasons: the excessive and unjustified powers that it confers on guards; the lack of safeguards, restricting the use of force; the absence of any time limit on the extent of force permissible; and the failure to address the real problem of mixing the people there. Some of the people may indeed be convicted criminals not asylum seekers, not people seeking refuge and protection. Some of people may indeed have broken the law and they are put in the same facilities alongside Somali families, alongside a young Afghan asylum seeker or alongside families from Syria.

Other failures of this bill include the insufficient training prescribed for guards with new powers; the insufficient oversight prescribed for guards with new powers; the excessive and unjustified immunities from legal action for guards who exceed force; and, of course, above all else, the lack of transparency as to what actually goes on in these horrid places. If the government was fair dinkum about wanting more powers of force for the officers who work in these places, it should have come to this place with a deal to be more transparent and more open—a check on power, an openness about what the public and the parliament can see about how these places operate and the rules, the treatment and the conditions inside. You have to wonder what on earth the government are hiding from in terms of the conditions inside Australia's detention camps when they lock out the media, they gag the staff and they threaten anybody who questions the confidentiality and gag rules of the contracts that are signed by the government.

This bill provides that force may be used whenever officers believe that force is reasonably necessary. All you need do is walk down Hindley Street in Adelaide or somewhere in Kings Cross on a Saturday night and you can see that individuals who act as security officers for nightclubs, nightclub bouncers, do not always get the decisions right about how they engage with members of the general public. Yet, here we have officers whose minimum qualifications are that of a nightclub bouncer being given authorisation by the Commonwealth to treat the people in their care, effectively, how they want, giving them excessive force powers. All they have to do is say, 'I thought it was reasonable.' It is a recipe for disaster.

This 'reasonably necessary' standard is extremely low and relies upon an unauthorised officer's subjective belief. Prison guards and the Australian Federal Police are subject to a stricter and objective standard. If we expect more of our police officers, if we require more of the guards who guard our prisons, why on earth should this place be expected to give unfettered force powers to security guards, who are meant to be looking after asylum seekers and refugees?

The breadth of the circumstances in which force may be used is also far too wide—using force to maintain good order, whatever that means. I tell you what: good order is humane conditions inside these horrid camps; and children who feel safe and secure, not children who feel terrified on a daily basis that they are going to be woken up at two or three o'clock in the morning and moved to a different detention centre. Good order means allowing media and advocates into these facilities so there is transparency about what goes on. But of course that is not the nature or the description of good order as outlined by this government's piece of legislation.

The measures outlined in this bill also remove the right to peaceful protest from those who are detained inside, and force may be used on them at any given time in line with these new laws and to move them within the facilities. Every person in this country has the right to peaceful protest. Every person in this country has the right to speak up and question, particularly when they believe they are being treated inhumanely and unfairly.

The mothers, who recently protested peacefully in the Darwin facility at Wickham Point, did so because they were terrified that their young babies and toddlers were going to be sent to Nauru. Under this piece of legislation, they would be subjecting themselves to the use of force.

There are no safeguards for restricting the use of force in this piece of legislation. Under this bill, there is no limit on the extent of force permissible. This legislation gives unfettered power to physically restrain or use force against a person—man woman or child—if indeed the security officer at the time believes that it is reasonable, a security officer who has no more qualifications than a nightclub bouncer.

One of my biggest concerns in relation to this legislation is that it is setting up those officers who work in detention centres to be very unclear and to feel uneasy about what they are and are not allowed to do. There has been some talk that this bill was going to provide clarity so that officers knew what the extent of their powers was. There is no clarity apart from: whatever goes will be okay—hands off; treat people however you want; we will turn a blind eye; and we won't care. The media will never find out about it, because they are not allowed in, and any other staff who want to talk will be targeted, prosecuted and liable for up to two years jail. I do not think that that is going to make any officer in Australia's detention facilities tonight feel any safer, more secure or give them any more clarity about what their role entails.

As I have mentioned a number of times, there is insufficient training outlined in this legislation—a minimum standard of a certificate II, a night club bouncer. The bill permits the minister to determine the level of qualifications required by officers to use force. It was listed in the explanatory memorandum as a certificate II. I can tell you: Minister Dutton is the last person who should be setting the standards for training security officers to deal effectively and responsibly with the use of force in Australia's detention facilities.

Certificate II in security takes about 16 days to complete. Most of the training is on the job. There is no requirement for people to have an understanding of the struggles and difficulties of somebody who has fled a war zone, the mental health issues, the post-traumatic stress from their experiences or the years and years and years of being locked up in indefinite detention.

There is nothing in this legislation to help people who work in these facilities to deal with the real struggles, the realities of asylum seekers in Australia's detention centres every day—attempted suicide, self-harm. We are giving them excessive and unfettered powers to use force and to determine as an individual when that force should be used. But we are not giving them the training to deal with a young man from Afghanistan who has lost all hope and tries to hang himself in the bathroom.

This government's priorities are wrong when it comes to the staff and training issues that are required in our immigration facilities. There is of course, like many other areas in relation to this government's agenda on immigration and border protection, insufficient oversight of how these powers will be implemented, how they will be used and what happens when inevitably something goes wrong.

The complaints mechanism is a farce. Having to simply call a hotline in the immigration department to dob in your work mate or your boss does not give you confidence that, when things go wrong, they will be dealt with appropriately

The recent Senate inquiry into the conditions in Nauru have highlighted very, very clearly that staff who work in these places who are trying to do their jobs well despite the lack of expertise, assistance or understanding, often from their own contracted employers or indeed the department have no confidence that the complaints that they make about conditions and the treatment of people will be taken seriously. Philip Moss's review of the conditions inside the Nauru detention centre highlighted clearly that underreporting of incidents is a regular occurrence and is a serious problem because staff themselves have no confidence in the government's systems to respond seriously. That is why we must have mandatory reporting of abuse and assaults of all staff inside our facilities. It is why we must allow the media to access our facilities. It is why we need sufficient training requirements for all staff, particularly guards. Above all else, it is important that we remove the threat of jail that hangs over the head of staff simply for speaking out when things go wrong.