Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is almost like ancient history, but it is probably worth a mention in the Senate. Senators who have good memories may remember that from the Labor days we took over a situation in which Indonesian fishermen were incarcerated on their own vessels in the Darwin harbour. It always seemed to me that that was not quite appropriate. However, although there were people who said it was an inhumane way to house Indonesian fishermen, I always used to point out that the Indonesian fishermen live on their boats—albeit they are not the sorts of boats that Australians would live in. Indonesian fishermen, of choice and perhaps of necessity, live on their boats for many weeks and even months at a time. It was at times a little hypocritical for people to say that making them live in these boats within the harbour of Darwin was in some way contrary to their human rights. They chose to operate on these boats and live on them for weeks and months at a time, and it was always difficult for me to understand the distinction.

However, because there was a bit of media interest, I suspect, or perhaps because there were some genuine complaints, the consul from Indonesia made a complaint. As a result of that, the Howard government, always responsive to these sorts of things, initiated a new process, in which the fishermen were taken off their boats at the very earliest possible time and held on the mainland in some form of facility. I am not sure that the Indonesian fishermen shared their consul’s view on that. A lot of them were much happier, being seafaring people and fishermen, being incarcerated on their own boat in Darwin harbour than they were at having to go onto the land. Because of different things that were happening regarding detention facilities, very often the fishermen were removed from Darwin and taken to Adelaide or even over to Perth. I am not quite sure that this was in the best interests of the Indonesians. However, that is what happened.

Things have moved on now. There is now a very smooth process, which is conducted jointly by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and Immigration. A new facility has been put in place to house illegal fishermen, a facility which will be a very appropriate one. It will be a facility which will perhaps provide conditions that the Indonesian fishermen have never previously experienced. Many of them will think that it is a pretty good sort of a facility, and much better than what they have at home. During the time this report examines, a group called Barefoot Marine were doing the work for the Commonwealth. They were a very professional and efficient organisation that looked after the Indonesians very well.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission came to the conclusion that detaining the fishermen in their boats was not appropriate and issued a number of recommendations. The report was published by the President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Mr von Doussa, in September 2005. Prior to that, the Commonwealth government had already implemented most of what would become Mr von Doussa’s recommendations. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.