Immigration: Children in Detention

16th Jun 04

Mr ORGAN (Cunningham) (9.40 a.m.) — Last Thursday, 10 June, at 4.15 p.m. I attended a bell ringing ceremony at Wollongong Town Hall with over 100 local residents of all ages, including lots of kids. The ceremony marked the end of the four-week deadline set by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission calling on the federal government to release all children from Australian detention centres and residential housing projects. The deadline was contained within HREOC's 925-page report A last resort? National inquiry into children in immigration detention which was tabled on 13 May 2004.

In a rather pathetic, heartless move, the report was immediately attacked by the government, and its major findings and recommendations rejected. The minister labelled as `disappointing' the report's recommendation that there should be a presumption against the immigration detention of children and that family unity should be preserved. What a disgrace! The government attached the label `backward looking' to a scathing report which actually brought it to account for its shameful treatment of children and their families in immigration detention centres since 1996. This report is a damning indictment of the mandatory detention regime introduced by the ALP in 1992 and expanded upon and made more harsh and inhumane by this government.

More than 150 children remain in detention as we speak. These detention centres are nothing less than prisons, and they have had, and continue to have, a damaging effect upon the detainees. A last resort? contains numerous examples of the damaging physical and psychological effects imprisonment is having on refugees and asylum seekers of all ages, but of most concern is the long-term effect on children. At the bell ringing ceremony last week I spoke with local psychiatrist Dr Neil Phillips, who outlined concerns amongst the profession in Australia over the long-term psychological effects detention has on young people. During my visit to Villawood detention centre last year I saw aspects of this tragedy. I saw children in a prison, behind razor wire and high gates. These children are subject to shocking events—people on hunger strikes, others committing suicide or harming themselves, and individuals experiencing physical and mental breakdowns.

The detention of children is a national shame—a national disgrace. The people of Australia know this, children in our schools know this, the world community knows this, and the thousands of Australians who rang bells last week know this. Yet the government persists with its heartless behaviour. And its excuse? The children are meant to deter people-smugglers. That is right: the government openly admits that it is using these children—abusing these children—in order to deter people-smugglers. This is nothing less than sickening. Until mandatory detention in Australia is abolished, until the present inhumane system is gotten rid of and until children, young people and others are released from these inhumane detention centres, where some people have been languishing for over five years, the bells must keep ringing. As the report revealed, the present mandatory detention regime is fundamentally inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.