Asylum Seekers - Speech to Victorian Parliament 2nd May 2001

Asylum seekers who have fled torture, or even death, in various countries and have arrived here with no papers are treated by Australia as criminals. They are given no right of appeal to a court of law against the decision to detain them, yet as they go through the asylum application process it is revealed that in about 80 per cent of cases they are bona fide refugees and must be allowed to stay in Australia. The detainees are therefore largely legitimate refugees, and according to a number of international conventions it has signed, Australia has a responsibility to look after and protect them.

The detention of children is an issue. There are more than 200 children in refugee detention centres. A number of were born in such centres and now find themselves at Woomera, Port Hedland or a detention centre somewhere else in Australia. Only yesterday former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser called for a judicial inquiry into detention centres. He questioned the appropriateness and reasonableness of Australiaís policy of mandatory detention and whether it conforms to Australiaís obligations under international agreements. He called for a more humane, cost effective, reasonable, efficient and consistent Öí policy by the government to replace the current system of mandatory detention. Mr Fraser pointed out that by putting whole families into detention when they arrive without papers, Australia is attracting international derision. He stated that it does not happen anywhere else in the world.

In Australia we pride ourselves on being a humane country that has given refuge to people from all over the world, yet we practise inhumane procedures that cause enormous pain and bring on us international condemnation by human rights and refugee groups.
In 1999 the federal Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs told the press that 10 000 people in the Middle East were packing their bags and heading for Indonesia in readiness for shipping out in boats to Australia. That public allegation was never substantiated by the minister or anyone else because the 10 000 people who were preparing to appear on our shores did not exist. The allegation, however, created a lot of media hysteria and was followed by the introduction of the Border Protection Act.
Australia is clearly in breach of international human rights conventions. Since the opening of the centre at Woomera, for example, there have been serious tensions. In June of last year 750 illegal immigrants being held in three detention centres protested against delays in having their asylum applications processed.

The government needs to change its detention policies and raise the standard of its facilities. Malcolm Fraser was right when last year he described Woomera as a ëhellholeí. All honourable members will have clear images in their minds of asylum seekers looking forlorn behind barbed wire in a harsh climate, and of the use of water cannon and tear gas on them. Honourable members also know there are 200 children living in those dreadful places.

I ask whether a country that treats people in the undignified way Australia is currently treating asylum seekers can be a civilised country. Malcolm Fraser has said that to treat people escaping from persecution in other countries in the way Australia is doing is absolute tyranny.

Australia is condemned around the world. A letter of last year from the United States Committee for Refugees to the Australian ambassador to the United States questions this countryís commitment to the protection of refugees and states that Australia is out of step with international practices. There are poor countries in the world that are looking after millions of people on their borders, and wealthy countries that are receiving hundreds of thousands of applications for refugee status. On the other hand, Australia has to cope with only about 1700 people who do not have documents, and it holds them all in detention centres. In the context of the millions of people who are forced to become refugees or risk persecution and death in their own countries, Australia is dealing with very small numbers of people, yet it treats them with complete contempt.

As the honourable member for Bentleigh well knows, in Australia is mandatory for a person who arrives without documentation to be instantly sent to a detention centre, where they are isolated and kept for long periods. Human rights abuses occur within those centres. In its 1998 report entitled Those Who Come Across the Seas - The Detention of Unauthorised Arrivals, The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission outlines alternatives to detention centres.

The federal Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs went to Sweden, which takes a much larger number of asylum seekers without documentation than Australia does, and saw alternatives to detention centres. Those alternatives involved individual assessment and a risk analysis of individuals as to whether they are likely to abscond.

I turn to the issue of human rights violations. Further inquiries by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission revealed a considerable number of complaints against basic human rights in Australian detention camps. No civilised country should be engaging in such practices. The inhuman conditions and treatment of people in the camps is well documented, and the commission is looking at undertaking a formal inquiry.

Commissioners have visited the camps to document the inhumane conditions that result partly because of the isolation, partly because of the physical features of the camps and partly because of mismanagement by the private providers who run the centres.

Requests of asylum seekers for legal advice and health care are basic human rights they have not had access to. Some individuals have been transferred to state prisons - and that issue was raised in Parliament. Asylum seekers have escaped persecution elsewhere, but 80 per cent or more of those who are given refugee status in this country are put into prisons. Australia is a signatory to an international convention on refugees and yet it is are denying these people their basic rights as refugees. Not only does it deny them their rights, it even puts some in the prison system as if they were common criminals.

Refugees have been sent back to countries where they risk torture, punishment and execution. In one case a woman who sought refugee status because of the one child policy in China was not only forced to return but was also forced to have an abortion on arrival. There are documented cases of people being sent back to their country of origin who have either disappeared or ended up in jail.

Australia needs to show compassion and find alternatives. Children should not be exposed to such harsh conditions. There is no justification for keeping children and babies in camps at Woomera, Port Headland and elsewhere.

Mrs Peulich interjected.

Mr CARLI - I note the interjection of the honourable member for Bentleigh. They are not criminals. The birth of this nation came from people who sought to rebuild their lives following persecution in many other countries. Asylum seekers are not criminals. They should be given the same status they are accorded in other countries, in which they are given temporary opportunities.

The situation in Australia is contradictory. On the one hand, if you arrive in Australia and you have some sort of documentation and you claim to be an asylum seeker, you are entitled to live in the community and will be issued with an appropriate visa. On the other hand, people who are escaping persecution and who arrive on boats with no documentation are sent to detention camps. For example, people who come from Afghanistan are clearly escaping death and persecution. Australia has also received people from Shiite and Kurdish communities in Iraq. They were forced out of their country because of Western policies that encouraged both the Kurdish and Shiite communities there to rise up and rebel against Saddam Hussein, but then they were sold out, and they ended up across the border. Some of these people ended up in Australia, and because they had no documents they were not given opportunities. They were sent to detention camps, which can best be described as concentration camps. These people are not criminals; the vast majority are genuine refugees

One can list the refugees who have made the country great or who are well known throughout the world. A picture of Einstein is used in posters, with the comment that he was a refugee. One can list many Australians who have arrived as a result of persecution. We were not one of the quickest nations to open our doors, but when we did we showed compassion. However, now the government is creating hysteria and claiming that these people are not genuine refugees when its own refugee tribunal deems the vast majority to be refugees. As a nation we are showing inhumanity.

If anyone had asked me about it 20 years ago, when I was organising demonstrations against Malcolm Fraser, I would never have said I would be in the Victorian Parliament today praising him. He has been courageous in making his comments.

There is a need for a judicial inquiry because what is happening is a disgrace. The situation does not occur in other countries, some of which have considerably larger numbers of asylum seekers than Australia. Many people in the community ó church groups, lawyers, trade unionists, politicians and former politicians ó are rising up and saying that as a civilised nation we can no longer tolerate the maintenance of these concentration camps.

Mrs Peulich interjected.

Mr CARLI - The honourable member for Bentleigh says that they should be released, and I wholeheartedly agree. They should be processed, as happens in Sweden. Minister Ruddock examined the situation there. It is fairly basic. People are detained for at the most a few days while temporary documentation is prepared. The documentation then allows them to live in the community and to have certain rights. The majority of asylum seekers in Australia and Sweden are proved to be refugees, and there is no reason to criminalise a genuine desire to survive and to not risk death and persecution in their countries.

Australia is being ridiculed by the rest of the world. We have become the target of international condemnation from Amnesty International, refugee organisations and the United Nations committees, and the European Parliament is looking at our performance. We are seen to not be a civilised or humane country but rather a country that is not prepared to respect basic human rights and its responsibilities as signatories to international conventions.