Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The report entitled Taking responsibility: conditions and circumstances at Australia's regional processing centre in Nauruwas tabled on 31 August 2015. The committee was established because evidence uncovered in the Moss review, whilst important, was not complete, and the situation at the regional processing centre in Nauru required further scrutiny.

The inquiry received new evidence about the conditions and circumstances in the RPC and provided an avenue for allegations to be raised. The committee received 101 submissions and accepted a certain amount of information on a confidential basis to protect the privacy of individuals. The committee held four public hearings in Canberra. The committee heard that more than $1.3 million is spent each day on running the RPC. That is $613,900 per asylum seeker in a 10-month period, or over $2,000 per asylum seeker per day—an extraordinary expenditure of public money.

The committee made 15 recommendations, including that Australia provide support to the government of Nauru to process refugee status determinations more quickly. The committee heard that the average duration of the time an asylum seeker will spend in the RPC is 402 days—in a marquee or a tent, depending on whose opinion you take. But, either way, in a climate akin to Darwin's, 402 days in a mouldy marquee or tent at a cost of $2,000 per day is an extremely bad spend of money, from any angle. So we have asked for more transparent accounting.

The committee is concerned that spending on large projects in Nauru is not undergoing the scrutiny of the Public Works Committee. Then minister Morrison and current minister Dutton have not complied with the basic transparency and accountabilities under the Public Works Act in the expenditure of money in Nauru. Hundreds of millions of dollars have not been subject to the probity and scrutiny of the federal parliament. So the committee also suggests in its report that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection should provide full and disaggregated accounts in its portfolio budget statements and clarify whether public money spent on Nauru is assistance to a foreign government or not. Under questioning, they said, 'We have taken legal advice that we can do this because it's assistance to a foreign government.' That is very shoddy transparency and probity.

We also suggest that there be an early and open move to an expansion of the open centre model, with a view to lower-security living arrangements. We have over 800 guards in Nauru, more than the number of asylum seekers there. Money saved through this measure should be invested in providing more-humane living arrangements.

With regard to alcohol and drug testing of contracted service provider staff, the committee heard that drug testing cannot be undertaking due to the lack of a laboratory. The committee found this to be a poor argument for compromising the safety of asylum seekers and workers in the RPC. If a drug and alcohol policy can work in a regional and remote mine, I am sure it can work on Nauru.

The committee further recommended that the Australian government continue its commitment to remove children from the regional processing centres wherever possible; that there be a public commitment by the Australian government about the medium- to long-term plan for the RPC, including how education will be provided to children; that a dedicated and experienced non-government organisation be contracted directly by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to provide welfare services; and that there be a strengthening of accountability through a full audit of all allegations of sexual abuse, child abuse and other criminal conduct, to be undertaken by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in conjunction with the Federal Police.

The committee recommended greater access to the regional processing centre by the Australian Human Rights Commission and the media. It is $8,000 for a visa for Nauru for the media. A media organisation has to put up $8,000, which is non-refundable, for the opportunity to visit that place and report on it. That is not a very transparent or satisfactory arrangement.

The committee recommended that there be greater involvement of the Immigration Ombudsman, and that there be a report to the Australian parliament by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection by the end of December 2015, and every six months after that, that sets out all allegations of a criminal nature concerning the regional processing centre and the department's response to them.

The committee is not satisfied that there is sufficient accountability and transparency, and recommends that the examination of these matters be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 31 December 2016, including conditions for asylum seekers, accountability mechanisms and whether the contracts deliver value for money.

That is a short summation of the recommendations and the work of the committee. I really sincerely encourage all senators to read the full report—the majority report, the dissenting report by the coalition and the additional comments by the Greens. This committee faced a very difficult challenge, with a lot of submissions and a lot of contestability about the evidence.

I want to go on record here and quote from the dissenting report by the coalition senators:

The Government Senators require to place the context and conduct of the Committee on the record. It is their view the process and principles of due process and procedural fairness have not been adhered to as a result of the majority members of the committee being willing to accept untested and unsubstantiated submissions as fact.

Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, nothing could be further from the truth—or that as the chair of that committee I have accepted unsubstantiated matters as fact. Nothing could be further from the truth. If, by weight of evidence, we had discovered that the regional processing centres were operating well and were operating safely—free of the influence of drugs and alcohol and free of allegations of sexual and physical abuse—then that is what the report would have said. It would have drawn from the evidence. So I reject absolutely the contribution from the government senators that we somehow took unsubstantiated evidence, made it a fact and then produced a report. In fact, that is just totally anathema to me personally. I take it as a personal affront to me and to my professionalism as a senator for South Australia. I do not and will not resile from the fact that evidence is evidence. I do not care if the report is critical of a Labor government. It is critical of this incumbent government, and it is drawn from fact and evidence.

I will single out Senator Reynolds because of her conduct throughout the inquiry. It was totally partisan, totally political and less than objective conduct. I will single her out. I think it was Peter Costello who said, 'There is a thing called a woodchuck'—I did not know what a woodchuck was—which is a politician who will say and do anything for promotion. I will single out Senator Reynolds on that basis. You could not sit through these hearings and read these submissions and not be affected by them. They were really disturbing submissions. The evidence we got was grave. The findings we make are severe, and they should be acted upon. For someone to try and tart that all up as a couple of Labor Party senators having a go at the government is totally false and wrong. She ought to come into this Senate and own up to the fact that she has taken a party political stance on a very, very important issue and a matter of great substance to this parliament. You listen to the evidence. People came. The department hand to be written to to answer the questions in a more fulsome manner, and they did. One of the major contractors deliberately did not come back in to correct the evidence for a month. For a month they sat on the lies that they had told the hearing. For a senator to put her name to a dissenting report and say that we on this side have made it all up is really heinous. To have this attack on the committee is something that I will not forget.

The secretariat did an absolutely brilliant job of getting all of the best advice it possibly could, including from the clerk of committees, the Clerk of the Senate, the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions. We sought to get the best and most professional advice possible and to act in the most professional way possible. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.