Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to discuss the report of the inquiry by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, of which I was chair, into serious allegations of abuse, self-harm and neglect of asylum seekers in relation to the Nauru Regional Processing Centre and any like allegations in relation to the Manus Regional Processing Centre. We tabled that report during the break.

I want to, at the outset, raise a couple of structural complexities about this inquiry, one of which is the fact that we were inquiring into something that is almost wholly in the domain of Australian control, although the government says that these centres are the subject of the overseas nations' control. But the extent to which they are being funded and controlled by Australian interests was absolutely clear. However, because they are offshore, we were prevented, as a committee, from being able to visit either Manus or Nauru, and it was also difficult for anyone to call in from those countries, because it meant that they would not be protected by parliamentary privilege. That in and of itself highlights some of the structural complexity around our offshore processing centres.

In effect, the Australian government is trying to paint itself as being at arms-length from these issues on Manus Island and Nauru because of their offshore nature, because it has purportedly given control to the national interests of the countries concerned and because it relies heavily on the private sector to administer day-to-day management of the scheme. In effect, that amounts to an extreme lack of accountability and transparency in the administration of our offshore processing policy. That has also meant that there is a complete failure to clearly acknowledge where the duty of care actually lies in relation to the asylum seekers in these offshore centres. For a policy that represents such an incredibly significant investment of Australian public funds, that lack of accountability is extraordinarily disturbing.

A great deal of our inquiry was spent trying to unpick these issues. The Australian government continues to facilitate the processing of asylum seekers who have claimed or attempted to claim protection from Australia. As our report makes clear, significant changes to the administration of this policy are necessary. First and foremost, the Australian government needs to acknowledge something that is absolutely and substantively true, and that is that it controls these regional processing centres. The department—that is, the Australian government—pays for all of the associated costs, engages all of the major contractors, owns all of the major assets and, to date, has been responsible for negotiating all of the possible third-country resettlement options. If that is not effective control, I do not know what it is. And yet time and time again in this place, in our committee and in any other forum, the government continues to pretend that it is at arms-length from these operations. That is utterly false.

It is also clear that the department is the decision-maker for approving the provision of specialist health services and medical transfers for anyone who needs specialist or urgent medical care. Again, that is absolute effective control over the lives and wellbeing of every one of the asylum seekers in these regional processing centres. Indeed, the government is also responsible for the development of policies and procedures that relate to the operation of those regional processing centres. The government might pretend that these things are at arm's length or effectively in the control of other nations, but manifestly they are absolutely not, and it is quite extraordinary really to think that this parliament does not have an adequate privilege to be able to scrutinise those matters.

The Australian government clearly has the primary duty of care in relation to all of those asylum seekers who have been transferred to Nauru or Papua New Guinea, and for the government to suggest otherwise is an extraordinary fiction. I want to highlight that the secrecy surrounding the regional processing centres really needs to cease. Refugees and asylum seekers are extremely vulnerable, and their vulnerability has been exacerbated because of the fact that they are housed in these distant and remote locations. I believe that this place—the Senate—and international human rights bodies and indeed all Australians should be in a position to scrutinise the running of these regional processing centres. While Australia continues to manage concerns about asylum seekers making the dangerous journey to Australia by boat, the day-to-day management of the regional processing centres in fact has little connection to that problem.

It is difficult to see how transparency about the provision of, for example, medical services or education services, the refugee status determination processes and a deportation risk assessment would have any bearing on the future success of those efforts. I truly think we need a much greater degree of transparency from this government, particularly in relation to the costs of administering this policy and the services provided as part of any contracts. Despite the fact that the government wants to stand at arm's length from these policies, Australian taxpayers bear all the costs of offshore processing. And, as the Australian National Audit Office has highlighted in a number of reports now, there is significant maladministration taking place in the management of these contracts that is exacerbated by the way the government is choosing to hide the issues. Australians are entitled to know how public funds are being spent, and this place is likewise entitled to that information.

A significant part of the report we are discussing today was devoted to recording the high number of incident reports made public through the publication of the Nauru files and was supported with evidence from submitters to the inquiry, and we received a great deal of additional evidence. While the evidence this inquiry received is not new, it really does show that the allegations and much of the information contained was observed firsthand and revealed disturbing and alarming harm towards refugees and asylum seekers taking place. The picture we received paints a deeply troubled asylum seeker and refugee population and an unsafe living environment, especially for children, and these should all be issues of great concern to the Senate. Even more troubling, these reports record only those incidents that have actually been reported to workers or that workers themselves have observed. They do not, I think, represent the true prevalence of such incidents. These issues are a significant concern— (Time expired)