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

In respect of the detention arrangements reports by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, I move:

That the Senate take note of the documents.

These reports are an assessment of detention arrangements that is required by the Migration Act, and these reports assess the appropriateness of the immigration detention arrangements for each person detained for two years or more.

The first point I want to make is this: it absolutely beggars belief that, when I put to the Department of Home Affairs during Senate estimates recently that there are some people who are indefinitely detained within Australia's immigration detention system, the department rejected that proposition. They rejected the truth. The truth is that there are many people who have been indefinitely detained—in some cases for longer than a decade—in Australia's immigration detention system. It is positively Orwellian for the Department of Home Affairs to try and mount an argument that, because they occasionally take a look at the circumstances of these people and then decide to leave them in immigration detention, they are not indefinitely detained. Of course they are indefinitely detained, and the current government is now complicit in this arrangement that was weaponised by the previous government to punish migrants and people who seek asylum in our country.

These reports by the Commonwealth Ombudsman also cover alternative places of detention, APODs. Yesterday the Australian Human Rights Commission released an inspection report entitled The use of hotels as alternative places of detention. As part of its inquiry, the commission had Professor Suresh Sundram, an independent medical expert, join the inspection and provide advice on issues relating to the physical and mental health of people detained in hotel APODs. The commission made 24 recommendations to the Department of Home Affairs. The department agreed with just two of 24, disagreed with five and noted the remaining 17, again continuing the shameful carceral legacy in this country, where we believe that, if you've got a problem with someone, you should just lock them up and throw away the key.

The recommendations the department disagreed with included recommendations regarding the use of force, the provision of activities, the provision of education and eligibility for social supports post-release, including the Status Resolution Support Services. I make the point that the Status Resolution Support Services, the SRSS, were slashed by the previous government and have still not been reinstated by the new government. When we would criticise the Labor Party when they were in opposition, all we would get from their supporters was, 'They're not in government,' but the Labor Party are in government now, colleagues. They could actually do something about this if they wanted to. When the Department of Home Affairs rejects these recommendations, it is the Labor Party and the Labor government rejecting these recommendations.

The key take-home message of the commission's report was that hotels are not appropriate facilities for lengthy periods of detention and should only ever be used in exceptional circumstances and for the shortest possible time. I could not agree more. The Australian Greens could not agree more. But the department, true to form, has responded by disagreeing with many of the recommendations and simply noting many of the others rather than implementing them.

I well remember when I visited one of the hotels in Melbourne with then leader of the Australian Greens Senator Richard Di Natale to visit some of the people who had been incarcerated on Manus Island and then, when they got to Australia for medical treatment, had been simply thrown into a hotel and detained there indefinitely. I well remember the punitive conditions of that hotel. I well remember the desperation of the people who were incarcerated there. I well remember their pleas to us to please do something to get them out of these terrible places of detention and into the community, where they could breathe fresh air and feel the sun on their skin. Hotel detention in APODs is a crime against humanity, and it must end now. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.