Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee on its inquiry into serious allegations of abuse, self-harm and neglect of asylum seekers in relation to the Nauru Regional Processing Centre and any like allegations in relation to the Manus Regional Processing Centre.

Last week I was in Papua New Guinea on Manus Island, where Australia has been detaining innocent people in the Manus Island detention centre, in many cases for nearly four years. Those people who are detained there, along with the people Australia is detaining on Nauru, are Australia's political prisoners. They are being deliberately harmed by the Australian government in order to coerce other people. That is why what is happening on Manus Island as well as what is happening on Nauru can accurately be described, and has been described by Amnesty International, as torture.

When I was on Manus Island I learnt a number of things—and I will speak about some of those matters at another time. What I did learn was exactly what happened in the lead-up to the Good Friday shootings at the Manus Island detention camp. I learnt about those events through lengthy conversations with eyewitness detainees and with Inspector David Yapu, who is the senior Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary officer on Manus Island.

What happened on Good Friday on Manus Island was that Papua New Guinea naval personnel attacked Australia's detention camp. They fired over a hundred shots into and over the camp, and they tried to ram through the gates of the camp with a naval vehicle. During this attack, detainees huddled for their lives—on the floor, under their beds, wherever they could find—to get out of the way of the bullets. Right beside them, huddling for their very lives, were the staff at the centre, who were quite understandably terrified—along with the detainees—about what was going on.

I want to talk specifically about the comments made on the public record by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Mr Dutton, about what led up to these shootings. Mr Dutton was asked on Sky News on 19 April by David Speers what he knew about an incident where, as Mr Speers put it:

… the PNG Defence Force allegedly fired shots at the detention centre after a fight with asylum seekers.

Mr Dutton, after briefly mentioning that there was an investigation underway by the PNG police, said:

There was difficulty, as I understand it, in the community. There was an alleged incident where three asylum seekers were alleged to be leading a local five year old boy back toward the facility and there was a lot of angst around that, if you like, within the local PNG community.

David Speers then asked:

Why was there angst about that?

Mr Dutton said:

Well because I think there was concern about why the boy was being led or for what purpose he was being led away back into the regional processing centre. So I think it's fair to say that the mood had elevated quite quickly. I think some of the local residents were quite angry about this particular incident and another alleged sexual assault.

So there you have it: the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, directly linking an event that involved a young, local boy with the shootings.

'What is wrong with that?' you might ask. I will tell you what is wrong with that. It is complete and utter rubbish. It is a deliberate fabrication from the minister—a falsehood designed to demonise asylum seekers in the minds of the Australian people. I know that, because I have spoken to many people who were there, and I have also had a lengthy briefing from the Papua New Guinea police about this matter.

I want to inform the Senate what Inspector David Yapu of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary told me. I am reading directly from my contemporaneous notes of the conversation that I had with Inspector Yapu. The first point he made was that the event around a boy was 'a completely unrelated matter.' He said that that event happened on the ninth and, as he pointed out to me, Good Friday was much later. Inspector Yapu also said that there has been no complaint laid to the PNG police over the event with a young boy. The direct quote from Inspector Yapu was: 'The boy's parents have not come to the police. It is a dead issue, as far as we are concerned. It is a dead issue.' That is what he said to me.

Why is Peter Dutton, the minister for immigration, trying to link an event involving a young boy with the terrible shootings on Good Friday when, in fact, the PNG police—both in that conversation and that briefing they provided to me, but also in other public comments—have made it very clear that there is no connection between the two events?

Well, of course, Peter Dutton is doing this because it worked for the Liberals last time, when they lied about children being thrown overboard. The Liberals have got plenty of exposed form on lying about people seeking asylum and refugees and doing so because they think it is to their political benefit.

I have spoken to detainees who were there when the young boy came up to the centre—he was not led up there, by the way; Mr Dutton is wrong about that, too. When he came up, the detainees gave the boy some fruit. He had said he was hungry. The detainees gave some of their precious fruit—and it is precious, in that place—to the boy, in an act of kindness and of good heart. And the boy left, completely unharmed.

But that is not Mr Dutton's version of events. His version of events is completely different. In fact, his version of events bears very little or no relationship to reality and to what actually happened, both on 9 April—when that boy came up and was given fruit and left completely unharmed—and on Good Friday.

I am going to tell you what actually led to the Good Friday shootings on Manus Island. There is a football field on the naval base within which the Manus Island detention centre is located, and there is an informal arrangement that the detainees can use that football field up to a particular time and that after that it reverts back to use by the navy personnel. There was a dispute around whether the detainees should leave the field, and that dispute escalated in such a way that shots ultimately ended up being fired. But what happened is that PNG naval personnel, holding alcoholic drinks, started by throwing rocks and actually successfully hitting some of the detainees. I have seen the scar on one detainee's head; the scab is still there; it is the size of a 50c piece. He was rescued by other detainees who were in fear of their lives from these drunken Papua New Guinea naval personnel, and he was conveyed back up to the camp. And shortly after that the shooting started. That is what caused the shooting. It was nothing to do with Mr Dutton's version of events.

But Mr Dutton has made it worse for himself because, when he was cross-examined by Barrie Cassidy on 23 April on the ABC's Insiders program and Barrie Cassidy said, 'Why didn't you let the investigation happen before you pre-empted it?' Mr Dutton said, 'I was asked why the mood had elevated on the ground on Manus Island.' Well, no, he was not! No, he was not asked that at all. That was another lie. He was asked about the shooting. He was not asked why there was an elevation in the mood on the ground. So he has doubled down here, lie on lie. And the Australian people deserve an answer from Mr Dutton as to why he is demonising asylum seekers—

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, resume your seat, please. Senator Williams?

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I thought it was agreed that to use the word 'lie' and to refer to people as liars in this place was unacceptable language, and I ask you to ask Senator McKim to withdraw those comments he has made about that particular minister.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Williams. I have been listening carefully. My view was that Senator McKim was skirting quite close, but I will ask him to consider withdrawing and remind him that that terminology is unacceptable.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Acting Deputy President. I certainly appreciate your ruling. But, in the very short time that I have left to me, I just want to say: Australians deserve—

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, I have asked you to consider withdrawing the last comment you made.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because you are indicating it is contrary to standing orders, I will withdraw it.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator McKim. Please—

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But I want to say: Australians deserve the truth and they deserve better—

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, and you are free to continue, thank you.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. Australians deserve the truth, and they deserve better from their immigration minister. (Time expired)

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to discuss the report of the inquiry by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, of which I was chair, into serious allegations of abuse, self-harm and neglect of asylum seekers in relation to the Nauru Regional Processing Centre and any like allegations in relation to the Manus Regional Processing Centre. We tabled that report during the break.

I want to, at the outset, raise a couple of structural complexities about this inquiry, one of which is the fact that we were inquiring into something that is almost wholly in the domain of Australian control, although the government says that these centres are the subject of the overseas nations' control. But the extent to which they are being funded and controlled by Australian interests was absolutely clear. However, because they are offshore, we were prevented, as a committee, from being able to visit either Manus or Nauru, and it was also difficult for anyone to call in from those countries, because it meant that they would not be protected by parliamentary privilege. That in and of itself highlights some of the structural complexity around our offshore processing centres.

In effect, the Australian government is trying to paint itself as being at arms-length from these issues on Manus Island and Nauru because of their offshore nature, because it has purportedly given control to the national interests of the countries concerned and because it relies heavily on the private sector to administer day-to-day management of the scheme. In effect, that amounts to an extreme lack of accountability and transparency in the administration of our offshore processing policy. That has also meant that there is a complete failure to clearly acknowledge where the duty of care actually lies in relation to the asylum seekers in these offshore centres. For a policy that represents such an incredibly significant investment of Australian public funds, that lack of accountability is extraordinarily disturbing.

A great deal of our inquiry was spent trying to unpick these issues. The Australian government continues to facilitate the processing of asylum seekers who have claimed or attempted to claim protection from Australia. As our report makes clear, significant changes to the administration of this policy are necessary. First and foremost, the Australian government needs to acknowledge something that is absolutely and substantively true, and that is that it controls these regional processing centres. The department—that is, the Australian government—pays for all of the associated costs, engages all of the major contractors, owns all of the major assets and, to date, has been responsible for negotiating all of the possible third-country resettlement options. If that is not effective control, I do not know what it is. And yet time and time again in this place, in our committee and in any other forum, the government continues to pretend that it is at arms-length from these operations. That is utterly false.

It is also clear that the department is the decision-maker for approving the provision of specialist health services and medical transfers for anyone who needs specialist or urgent medical care. Again, that is absolute effective control over the lives and wellbeing of every one of the asylum seekers in these regional processing centres. Indeed, the government is also responsible for the development of policies and procedures that relate to the operation of those regional processing centres. The government might pretend that these things are at arm's length or effectively in the control of other nations, but manifestly they are absolutely not, and it is quite extraordinary really to think that this parliament does not have an adequate privilege to be able to scrutinise those matters.

The Australian government clearly has the primary duty of care in relation to all of those asylum seekers who have been transferred to Nauru or Papua New Guinea, and for the government to suggest otherwise is an extraordinary fiction. I want to highlight that the secrecy surrounding the regional processing centres really needs to cease. Refugees and asylum seekers are extremely vulnerable, and their vulnerability has been exacerbated because of the fact that they are housed in these distant and remote locations. I believe that this place—the Senate—and international human rights bodies and indeed all Australians should be in a position to scrutinise the running of these regional processing centres. While Australia continues to manage concerns about asylum seekers making the dangerous journey to Australia by boat, the day-to-day management of the regional processing centres in fact has little connection to that problem.

It is difficult to see how transparency about the provision of, for example, medical services or education services, the refugee status determination processes and a deportation risk assessment would have any bearing on the future success of those efforts. I truly think we need a much greater degree of transparency from this government, particularly in relation to the costs of administering this policy and the services provided as part of any contracts. Despite the fact that the government wants to stand at arm's length from these policies, Australian taxpayers bear all the costs of offshore processing. And, as the Australian National Audit Office has highlighted in a number of reports now, there is significant maladministration taking place in the management of these contracts that is exacerbated by the way the government is choosing to hide the issues. Australians are entitled to know how public funds are being spent, and this place is likewise entitled to that information.

A significant part of the report we are discussing today was devoted to recording the high number of incident reports made public through the publication of the Nauru files and was supported with evidence from submitters to the inquiry, and we received a great deal of additional evidence. While the evidence this inquiry received is not new, it really does show that the allegations and much of the information contained was observed firsthand and revealed disturbing and alarming harm towards refugees and asylum seekers taking place. The picture we received paints a deeply troubled asylum seeker and refugee population and an unsafe living environment, especially for children, and these should all be issues of great concern to the Senate. Even more troubling, these reports record only those incidents that have actually been reported to workers or that workers themselves have observed. They do not, I think, represent the true prevalence of such incidents. These issues are a significant concern— (Time expired)

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

This report by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee is, to my recollection, probably the fourth or fifth or sixth report that this Senate has done on the Nauru and Manus Island centres. These reports all stem from the goal of the Labor Party and the Greens and some of the crossbenchers to denigrate the wonderful work the coalition government has done in stopping the boats and preventing the illegal entry into Australia of people who are, quite frankly, jumping the queue. For some reason, the Labor Party and the Greens think it is okay for people who have the money to do so to fly from wherever to Malaysia or Indonesia and then pay people smugglers $15,000 per person or more to enter Australia illegally. The Greens and the Labor Party seem to think that is not a bad system. It is a system which most Australians do not agree with, in fairness, and it is one that we were determined to stop and have stopped.

As a result of that, the Labor Party eventually got the message from the Australian people. It was when Mr Kevin Rudd, a Labor Prime Minister, was in charge that the penny eventually dropped. He realised that he had to adopt a similar process. So Mr Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party Prime Minister, made arrangements with the PNG government and the Nauru government to set up detention centres on their islands so that these people would not be in Australia but be in some other countries. This was an arrangement—I repeat again and again—made by the Labor Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd. He did it badly and in a hurry, and as a result the Auditor-General's report which Senator Pratt referred to made some findings that we accept. We know they are right, because the Labor government put these arrangements into place so quickly that they made mistakes—gross mistakes, very serious mistakes.

Over the time we have been in government we have tried to address those mistakes, and all credit to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection for the wonderful work they have done. They have been under a lot of pressure. They were under real pressure when there were 2,000 or 3,000 people arriving on our shores illegally every week. They did a fantastic job as public servants. It was a very difficult and emotional area of public policy, but they did the job. Then they were asked by Mr Rudd, the Labor Prime Minister, to make these arrangements with Nauru and Manus almost overnight, and mistakes were made. We have acknowledged that, and they have acknowledged that, and we have addressed most of those mistakes.

I must say that I was not able to attend most of the hearings related to this report, although I am deputy chairman of the committee. But very often—and this is a complaint I have often made—those hearings seemed to be scheduled for times when the Labor Party and the Greens knew that neither I nor the other government senator on that committee would be available. And so I did not attend a lot of those hearings. But for those that I did—and I tried to attend wherever I could—the 'evidence' that is referred to in the majority report on this particular inquiry really, in most cases, was not evidence at all. It was hearsay upon hearsay upon hearsay. It was comments made by people anonymously, so they could never be checked. Where allegations were made and were referred to the department, the department almost in every case had an explanation that was quite different to what the witness or the submission had said. I think the majority report even acknowledges that a lot of the allegations were unsubstantiated and unsupported. It is for this reason that I take little notice and little regard of what the majority has said in this report. I would suggest to anyone listening to this and to all other Australians that they should treat this report with real suspicion and should very carefully assess what is said.

The minority report of government senators was done very quickly at short notice, but it highlighted some of the things that I have been saying tonight. It highlighted that these are simply allegations from people who, I might say, have a specific interest in this issue. You have people who illegally tried to enter Australia. They were sent by Mr Kevin Rudd, the Labor Prime Minister, to Manus and Nauru. They have been very angry, and you can understand that. They paid tens of thousands of dollars to people smugglers and to airlines to almost get to Australia. You can understand that they are very unhappy at being incarcerated on Nauru and Manus. They will do anything possible to get into Australia. And, in this, they are supported by the Greens and the Labor Party. It just undermines the border security and border arrangements that have been put in place—badly in the first instance by Mr Rudd, the Labor Prime Minister, but then perfected by us.

We have made it very clear that these people on Manus and Nauru can go back to their country of origin at any time at the Australian taxpayers' expense.

Senator Hanson-Young interjecting—

They are housed in situations which are, in some cases, far better than many original Australians are housed in in our own country. There are facilities in these centres that many Australians do not enjoy. There are many Australians without air-conditioning. Yet we have complaints from these people who are illegally trying to enter Australia.

Senator Hanson-Young interjecting —

Senator Hanson-Young is asking if I have been there. No, I have not. But, Senator Hanson-Young, we have a professional public service—a public service who are not part of the political game but who do the job. They are there regularly; they are talking to people who are there regularly. All of the allegations made by people there and by the Greens political party, in particular, are from people with a motive. And you notice that the people supporting them—the lawyers who now do not have the government funded work in dealing with many of these applications, and there are other groups—have, I might say, conflicts of interest. So you have to take with a big grain of salt a lot of the allegations made. There are some serious concerns raised. These are followed up by the department professionally, sympathetically and in a very humane way. But you do not hear about that from the Greens or the Labor Party. Our professional public servants who are in charge of this do a wonderful job.

Just because the people who are running these systems on Nauru and Manus are not Australian officials but officials from governments of Papua New Guinea and Nauru, for some reason the Labor Party and the Greens will say, 'They're not doing it right.' If you talk about xenophobia, you would see a bit of that in the allegations made by the Greens and the Labor Party against government officials from PNG and Manus who do a good job, a wonderful job in difficult circumstances, and they are supported very substantially by the Australian taxpayer and by assistance from Australian officials. I conclude by saying: for anyone interested in this subject, treat this report with a lot of caution. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.