Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, upon notice, on 30 May 2011:

(1) Since 1 January 2008, for each centre:

(a) what incidents of violence have there been;

(b) on what date did they occur; and

(c) what injuries were suffered by:

  (i) detention centre staff, and

  (ii) other detainees

(2) Were the perpetrators of the violence identified; if so what action, if any was taken against them

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) (a) From 1 January 2008 to 14 June 2011 the following incidents have been reported:

596 incidents of allegations of assault or damage to facilities involving individual detainees across the immigration detention network;

(c) The 596 incidents of alleged assault or damage to facilities involving individual detainees across the immigration detention network resulted in:

(i) 45 incidents of injury to staff; and

(ii) 196 injuries to clients.

The majority of these incidents were minor in nature and the injury was treated on site. The majority of alleged assault incidents involved physical altercations between clients.

(2) In the period 1 January 2008 to 14 June 2011, police were notified 242 times in relation to incidents of alleged assault or damage to facilities. Police are notified when a victim of an alleged assault requests the police to be notified and is prepared to make a statement. Where there are allegations of assault or major disturbances of a critical nature, the police are called out to investigate the matter irrespective of the victim's preparedness to provide a statement.

Serco has a behavioural management policy in place to guide the management of behavioural issues that arise within immigration detention environments. The policy focuses on preventing behavioural issues through fostering a positive physical and social environment and diffusing issues that do arise before they escalate. All people in immigration detention are briefed on the policy around anti-social behaviour during the induction process and are advised about how they can raise issues or make a complaint to the detention service provider, the department, Commonwealth Ombudsman or Australian Human Rights Commission.

Where behavioural issues are observed or a complaint is made, Serco considers an appropriate intervention or response to address the particular circumstances. The type of intervention or response that may be implemented includes, but is not limited to:

Actions taken by Serco in relation to these incidents are recorded in multiple systems depending upon the nature of the incident. The very detailed information sought in the question is not readily available in consolidated form and it would be a major task to collect and assemble it. In order to report on the outcome for each incident, the department would need to manually interrogate these systems. The department estimates that this would take a departmental officer an average of 30 minutes for each incident. This equates to approximately 58 working days.

Recent amendments to the Migration Act may prevent people who have been involved in criminal, violent or destructive behaviour, from being allowed to apply for a permanent protection visa. These include provision for a person to fail the character test if convicted of an offence while in immigration detention, which will, in turn, affect a client's visa outcome. Relevantly, if clients are charged with an offence and are subsequently convicted, they will be considered against the character provision and may fail the character test.

The following tables summarise the 596 reported incidents involving allegations of assault and/or damage to Commonwealth property where the people involved were identified for each centre for the period 1 January 2008 to 14 June 2011. Incidents of abusive or aggressive behaviour and minor disturbances are excluded from these tables due to the difficulty in establishing actual violent behaviour and the identity of the people involved.

Brisbane ITA

Berrimah APOD

Construction Camp APOD

Curtin IDC

Darwin Airport Lodge APOD

Gwalia Lodge APOD

Inverbrackie APOD

Maribyrnong IDC

Melbourne ITA

North West Point Immigration Facility

Northern IDC

Perth IDC

Perth IRH

Phosphate Hill APOD

Port Augusta IRH

Scherger IDC

Sydney IRH

Villawood IDC