Linda Kirk (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to speak on reports in the media alleging rape and sexual assault of detainees held in Australian immigration detention centres. I was outraged when I heard these reports last week—in particular, one which alleged that a mother in Villawood detention centre claims to have been repeatedly raped over a six-month period. These attacks are alleged to have occurred in front of her toddler, with the woman saying that she had been unable to prevent them because there was no lock on her room door. It has been alleged that this same man had also tried unsuccessfully to assault another detainee. A report in the Canberra Times on 11 June said the alleged rapist was a guard, whereas reports in other newspapers, including the Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald on 12 June, said that the man was a detainee. So it is unclear exactly who was involved in this, and I do not have any knowledge one way or the other.

Last week we also heard news that this claim, as well as other claims of sexual assault along with widespread drug use within Villawood, have been at the centre of an investigation ordered by DIMA. This investigation is headed by Mr Keith Hamburger, former head of Queensland corrective services. According to a news article in the Weekend Australian published on 10 June, a journalist from that paper obtained documents that show the investigation is covering issues including whether victims were:

... vulnerable because of “inadequate facilities, operating procedures and/or incompetence or worse by staff” ...

Mr Hamburger, who as far as I know has not yet made any public comment on the investigation, is also analysing reporting procedures, including looking at how DIMA staff handle complaints.

In addition to the alleged rape at Villawood, there have also been claims that other women and at least one male detainee and one child detainee have been sexually assaulted by guards or other male detainees. Another claim raised just this week is the case of a Villawood guard who is alleged to have sexually assaulted a former detainee when she visited a friend in Villawood last month.

Doctors who work in detention centres have claimed that sexual abuse of detainees is endemic, and it is not confined to Villawood. Psychiatrist Dr Louise Newman, who is convenor of a national alliance of detention centre health workers, has recently raised four other cases of alleged sexual harassment or assault. The first is the case of a young male detainee who told her he had been assaulted by an officer at the Baxter detention centre. The second case is an adolescent girl, again in Baxter detention centre, who told Dr Newman that officers had made sexually explicit statements to her. The third case is that of the girl’s mother, who was also subject to sexual taunts and molestation by fellow detainees but did not give this information to authorities. The fourth case that Dr Newman suspects is that a three-year-old Malaysian girl who was born in detention had been molested. Dr Newman believes that a culture of sexual harassment and voyeurism has led to widespread abuse and harassment. She has said that she would like to see the current DIMA investigation widened to include all three detention centres run by GSL. Unfortunately, there appears to be very little public information about the nature of the investigation that Mr Hamburger is conducting.

The Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Vanstone, was reported in Monday’s Australian as saying that the Hamburger investigation was due to be completed yesterday—that is, Tuesday, 13 June—and that the relevant sections would be ‘immediately’ sent to police. Senator Vanstone responded to the Villawood rape allegations that I have highlighted today by saying in an article in the Australian on Monday, 12 June:

I was amazed that such serious allegations could be raised so long after the alleged event and that at no time had the claims been referred to police ...

The woman’s lawyer, Michaela Byers, responded to this by saying that her client had poor English and had been left traumatised by the rapes—not unsurprisingly. She also said that worse than keeping it to herself would be for everyone to know about the attacks.

As Dr Newman has observed, detainees are often frightened to disclose abuse due to their fear about the potential adverse impact on their case for asylum. I find it amazing that Senator Vanstone is so amazed that detainees would fail to report rape and abuse. We all know that rape and assault committed against women is grossly underreported. Detainees especially are in a precarious position. They do not have the choices that many other women such as us have. For example, if I were afraid of someone—if I thought I were in danger of abuse—I would certainly not choose to have that person in my home. I would do all I could to make sure I was not in a position where that person had power over me. But what choice do female detainees have when the men who are allegedly abusing them are living in the same place or, worse, are guards in the detention centre? Can you imagine what sort of treatment or payback alleged victims might get if they were to dob someone else in in these circumstances? Imagine if you were a woman held in detention and you were raped in front of your child. As a mother, your first priority would almost certainly be the safety of that child.

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We do not yet know the circumstances of this case and I am not saying that this is what happened. But it is not difficult to imagine a scenario where the mother would weigh up the situation and judge that her child may be in even more danger if she were to report the assaults. Unless Senator Vanstone has no compassion and no imagination whatsoever, I find her comments, saying that she is ‘amazed’ by this situation, to be completely disingenuous. As I said, I am just amazed that anyone would be surprised that detainees would chose not to report abuse.

I also want to make a brief comment in the time that I have available on the allegations of drug use, which is obviously another area of great concern, particularly if it is occurring while children are present. I am also alarmed at the suggestion that has been made that detainees are sharing needles, as was suggested in one newspaper article, and especially the claim that one detainee who injected heroin had said that he is HIV positive.

In addition to these matters that I have referred to today, it was revealed just last week, as most of us are aware, that there are a further 26 people who have been wrongfully detained by DIMA. These people are in addition to the cases that have been so well publicised and that we all know about. What I find appalling is not just the fact this has happened again, but the fact that, again, DIMA have placed a high priority on covering this up. Of the 26 people, 11 are said to have received compensation of, on average, $74,000 on the condition that they say nothing about their detention. Again, this is another cover-up.

I have spoken many times in this place about failed immigration policy and the numerous DIMA stuff-ups and cover-ups that continue to occur. We have seen a very large number of cases of wrongful detention. We have seen wrongful deportation, widespread human rights abuses, including these latest allegations of rape, sexual abuse and child abuse that I have referred to here today. You really have to wonder what it will take for the government to take this issue seriously and fix Australia’s system of immigration detention—actually do something about what is occurring in these detention centres.

Instead of addressing this issue, looking at what is going wrong in detention centres and why there are these human rights abuses occurring, the government is taking the retrograde step of proposing that we ship asylum seekers off to Nauru. In doing so, it will be throwing out the agreement reached last year—that the Prime Minister agreed to—for removing children from detention and ensuring that children are only held in detention as a matter of last resort. What are we going to have under this proposal? More women and children in detention in a location far away. What will this do? It will have the effect of increasing, not reducing, the likelihood of abuses occurring and it will dramatically reduce the chances of abuses coming to light once they have occurred, if in fact they do happen.

I have to agree with Dr Louise Newman—we need a full investigation into abuse in all immigration detention centres in Australia. How many more examples of abuse, mistreatment, maladministration and human rights abuses do we need to uncover before we have a proper and thorough investigation and see some action taken? How many more Cornelia Raus, Vivian Solons, Bakhtiyari families, Shayan Badraies, Peter Qasims, and Hwang children need to have their lives destroyed by DIMA before some real action is taken to address what is occurring? How many more people have to develop a psychiatric illness as a result of long-term detention? How many more children have to be separated from their fathers for years on end? How many more women have to be raped? How many more children have to be abused before the government will do something?

Today I am calling on the Prime Minister and the minister for immigration to take three important steps. Firstly, Senator Vanstone must be removed. Her position as minister is just no longer tenable. Secondly, we need a royal commission into the immigration department, DIMA, and into the operation of the Migration Act. Thirdly, we need to start again with the Migration Act and the whole system of immigration detention. We have to start at the beginning, rethink the whole thing and come up with a solution which is humane.