Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'After two years, Australia's experiment in offshore detention has been a disaster. Even the few people provided refugee status have been denied freedom of movement and the right to work. All should be allowed to move on with their lives in dignity and security.' That is a comment from Elaine Pearson. Elaine Pearson recently visited Manus Island in her capacity as the Australian director of Human Rights Watch. She visited Manus Island with Daniel Webb from the Human Rights Law Centre.

More than 850 asylum seekers and 87 refugees are detained indefinitely in poor conditions on Manus Island, two years after Australia announced it would process and resettle boat people—as the government continues to call them—in New Guinea. The PNG authorities granted Ms Pearson and Mr Webb access to the transit centre but not the detention centre, where most of the men are. The main concern that they identified was that the absence of a PNG resettlement policy means refugee men have not been able to move on with their lives. After almost two years on Manus they remain in limbo, they reported, unable to leave the island or work. Such a prolonged period in limbo is affecting their mental health and some men appear to suffer from depression and anxiety—clearly that is not surprising.

They also said that they were very concerned about the lengthy processing times because this means far too many refugees remain in detention. They have been determined that they are refugees but they are still in detention. Some vulnerable men, including some gay men, are in detention and they have faced abuses from other detainees without proper protection.

Detaining asylum seekers for any amount of time in criminal justice institutions is clearly inappropriate. It is 2015 and you would have hoped that we would have learnt from past mistakes. Yet what was found from this investigation was that in January this year up to 60 asylum seekers were held without charge in a single cell for several weeks. In this time, two of the people held in these appalling conditions attempted to commit suicide. PNG immigration officials allegedly beat one refugee. Those charged with the assault included the camp manager. However, he continued to work at the centre. Obviously this is very distressing for the refugees.

The Australian government should stop sending asylum seekers to PNG. Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Law Centre have both called for this to occur and for both the Australian on the PNG governments to treat asylum seekers in accordance with international standards and implement a refugee resettlement policy. Our two governments at the moment detain asylum seekers, all adult men, in the overcrowded conditions at a facility on Manus Island's Lombrum Naval Base. Humans rights organisations and media have no regular access to these facilities. Again, why the secrecy? Why the lack of transparency? It certainly adds to people's concern that the abuses continue.

Two asylum seekers sent to Manus Island have died, one after being allegedly beaten to death by contract staff at the detention centre and another from septicaemia after cutting his foot. Daniel Webb, the director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre, who is one of the people who visited Manus, has said:

People found to be refugees deserve a real solution—not a transfer to a facility down the road where they remain in limbo.

Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Law Centre have summarised their concerns following their visit. These include pressure on asylum seekers to return to home countries, lengthy delays in refugee processing, mental health problems linked to prolonged and indefinite detention, arbitrary detention of asylum seekers and refugees in the police lockup and prison, restrictions on refugees' freedom of movement and work rights, assault of a refugee by alleged authorities in Lorengau town, and mistreatment of gay asylum seekers by other detainees. Yes, this is happening in PNG and the PNG government has some level of involvement, but the main responsibility rests with the Australian government. The fact that the Abbott government failed to, and has refused to, honour its treaty obligations and has forced these people onto PNG brings hardship, misery and suffering to those individuals as well as more pressure on PNG—a low-income country that we were the former coloniser of and continue to abuse.

These two organisations have made two significant recommendations: (1) that Australia should cease all further transfers to Manus Island and (2) that Australia should press PNG authorities to immediately adopt and implement a comprehensive local integration policy for refugees and to provide all recognised refugees in PNG with ordinary residency, freedom of movement, employment authorisation and other common identity documents.

Another matter concerns Malawi, which is also one of the low-income countries of Africa. In fact, it is regarded as the poorest country in the world according to the World Bank development indicators. The former Prime Minister Julia Gillard brought in the Mining for Development initiative, a new approach to overseas development where the mining industry is given aid money supposedly to assist it for its work in low-income countries, the argument being that this will benefit people in those countries. However, what we see is that benefits flow enormously to the mining companies.

I understand the example I am going to give was not involved in the Mining for Development initiative, but there is a very worrying trend with overseas aid of giving more assistance to mining companies. Malawi has lost out on US$43 million in revenue over the last six years from a single company—the Australian mining company Paladin. The money has been lost through a combination of harmful tax initiatives, and the Malawian government is having a real problem in managing this. What the company also does to minimise the tax that it pays, and therefore the profits that it can walk out of that country with, is what is called treaty shopping.

Let's remember that this is valuable money in such a poor country. This money could have paid for 431,000 annual HIV-AIDS treatments, 17,000 annual nurses' salaries, 8,500 annual doctors' salaries or 39,000 annual teachers' salaries. This comes from the very important work of ActionAid that is really identifying this abuse that many low-income countries are experiencing at the hands of big mining companies. I do note that what has happened is not illegal. On the contrary, the combination of tax breaks and tax planning is how mining companies in low-income countries are maximising their profits.

ActionAid have made some specific calls to the Australian government on this issue. They have called for our government to provide leadership in calling for the establishment of a UN intergovernmental body on tax by 2017 in order to further democratise the international tax reform processes and ensure decision making extends beyond the OECD countries and G20 finance ministers, to include lower income countries. Their second recommendation is for our government to review its tax policies to ensure adequate public funding of essential services for those that need them, including services that facilitate women's participation in the workforce and reduce their unpaid burden of care—and I congratulate ActionAid's work with women in communities in low-income countries. Their third recommendation is to ensure the focus on private sector development, under Australia's new aid program, promotes ethical conduct of Australian corporates overseas by actively challenging corporate tax avoidance and not promoting tax incentives for companies at the expense of essential public services in low-income countries.