Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Clearly, everyone does want children out of detention, but I will say a couple of things. One is that we have had circumstances where people have had an adverse security assessment and, when it has been put to the families or the guardian to take the child out of detention, the decision has been made to keep the child in detention. That is a matter for the guardian or the parent. We cannot forcibly move children out if their guardian or parent wants to keep them in detention. I think that we need to be cognisant in this debate that, as a Commonwealth or as a government, we cannot just take the children out if their guardian or parent does not wish them to be removed from them.

I go back to the point I originally made. I would remind Senator Hanson-Young that under the ALP-Green coalition, you supported Labor's policies. When Labor were in government, there were over 10,000 people in detention including almost 2,000 children. So let us put those figures again on the record. Under the coalition government, the number of children in detention has been reduced to about 100. I also remind the Senate that the Migration Act already contains a provision which states that a minor should only be detained as a measure of last resort. Therefore, these provisions already exist. If the Greens want children out of detention, the facts show that under our policies there have been fewer children in detention. The government opposes amendments(1), (2) and (5).

Also, we believe this amendment is unnecessary. There are already processes in place to mitigate any risk of non-citizen detention, including children, becoming unlawful or arbitrary through internal administrative review process, judicial review, Commonwealth Ombudsman inquiry processes, reporting and parliamentary tabling, and ultimately the possible use of the minister's personal intervention powers to grant a visa or to make a resident determination with the minister considers it is in the public interest.