Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The report from the Immigration Ombudsman details people in long-term immigration detention. This is one of a series of reports that have been put forward by the Immigration Ombudsman as a consequence of amendments made to the Migration Act under section 486O. It was put in place, as people may recall, as a result of a lot of political pressure, including from backbench members of the government, to get more transparency about what was happening in detention centres and what the consequences were, on a personal level, for many people who were in long-term detention. Particularly after the Cornelia Rau incident, it was very obvious that there was inadequate oversight of what was happening in detention centres—in particular, who is in there, how they are being treated and what harm is being done to them. That was particularly apparent for people who were there for prolonged periods.

These reports detail 214 cases, but I will not go through all of them here. Many relate to cases where people finally got out of detention but some of them do not. That is a reminder that, while it might have gone off the front pages, it is still a fact that our country locks people away in administrative detention—so-called migration detention—for years, even though they have not only never been convicted of an offence but also have never been charged with an offence. All that has happened to them is that they have had their visa cancelled—then we lock them up. That is it. It does not matter. There is no need to prove that they are a safety risk to the community, no need to prove that they are a flight risk and no need to prove that they are a health risk. Nothing at all! If you do not have a visa then you lose your freedom for years—in many cases with immensely damaging health consequences.

I appreciate that it is no simple matter to deal with some of the hard cases in immigration law. I do not pretend that it is easy every single time and with every single case, but I ask members of the public and the Senate to remember just how fundamental it is to take away people’s freedom, particularly to take it away for years and years and to do so without any judicial oversight or any adequate oversight over the conditions that those people experience—let alone any judicial oversight over the length of time those people are locked up. That is a continuing disgrace. It is one of the most fundamental breaches of one of the most basic components of our democratic society and the rule of law. To jail people for years without charge or trial is a disgrace and should not be allowed to continue. But it is still continuing. It is still happening today in Australia and it continues to be allowed under our Migration Act. If people read even one of these reports—and we have skipped over three other similar reports by the immigration ombudsman in the list of documents today—then they will find that they are just numbers here—they identify up to 214. But they are not numbers. They represent over 200 people who have been subjected to prolonged immigration detention with, in many cases, though not all, severe personal harm coming to them as a direct consequence of their detention.

One of the cases here is that of a Sri Lankan man who was detained for over four years. It is clearly detailed in the report that the immigration department made an administrative error right at the start in how it classified him as an offshore entry person when he was detained in the Cocos Islands for five months initially. He was not provided with any legal help when he first made his application, which prevented him from applying for the appropriate visa. That meant that his case was not heard by the Refugee Review Tribunal for 15 months after he arrived. It is bad enough that we stuff people around—a refugee who eventually got his visa after four years—on such fundamental issues but the consequence of people being stuffed around due to an administrative error is prolonged imprisonment, with all of the health consequences that go with it. That is still happening. Not all of them get the profile of Cornelia Rau, but the harm can be just as severe. The fact that some of them might be refugees or asylum seekers or even people who have arrived here and had their visas cancelled, as opposed to permanent residents, does not make it any more excusable. It is a reminder of why we need to amend the Migration Act. I certainly commit to continuing after the election to push all parties to take out this iniquitous provision of our Migration Act. The Senate should use its powers to do so. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.