Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present to the House a petition I have received from the Wills Chapter of the Grandmothers against Detention of Refugee Children.

The petition read as follows—

To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives

This petition of the Wills Chapter of Grandmothers Against the Detention of Refugee Children draws to the attention of the House: The prolonged, cruel and inhumane detention of minors under eighteen in detention centres that causes them significant mental and physical illness and developmental delay and that is in breach of Australia's international obligations.

We therefore ask the House to: immediately take action to free all minors into the Australian community.

from 1,149 citizens

Petition received.

This petition has been certified by the Standing Committee on Petitions as being in accordance with standing orders. The petition contains 1,149 signatures of people who wish to draw to the attention of the House the prolonged, cruel and inhumane detention of minors under 18 in detention centres, which causes them significant mental and physical illness and developmental delay, and which is in breach of Australia's international obligations. The petitioners ask the House to immediately take action to free all minors into the Australian community. It is indeed high time their applications were resolved.

The government says it has stopped the boats. While what the government calls Operation Sovereign Borders is shrouded in secrecy, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I will accept this claim at face value. On this basis, there can be no justification for continuing to hold people, especially children, in detention. The government says there are fewer children in detention than there were under the previous government. This is true, but it is not just a question of numbers. It is also about the length of time asylum seekers are being detained. To illustrate, if the government detains 1,000 people for a day, they would not be happy about it, but they are unlikely to suffer long-term harm. But, if the government detains one person for 1,000 days, the risk of severe and long-term damage to that person is very real. I urge the government to expedite the processing of all claims for refugee status. If they are not valid, the applicants should be returned to their country of origin. If they are valid, the asylum seekers should be released.

One further matter which was not raised in the petition but has been raised with me by a number of my constituents, particularly from the Iranian community, is that asylum seekers are often released into the community on what is known as community detention. I used to worry that such people would simply vanish and make a mockery of our system, but I have met a number of these people and they report regularly to the immigration authorities. I believe that community detention can work. But those in community detention have no right to work. They are destitute. They depend on the charity of friends and family. Then there is the boredom of having nothing to do. This is not something that gets sorted out in a few weeks. I have met asylum seekers in community detention who have been there for months or even years unable to work.

We spend an awful lot of time in this place extolling the moral virtue of work and talking about the physical and mental health benefits of having a job. We should not deny these benefits to people living here in community detention. It is even crazier when you hear employers claiming that they are short of workers and demanding the government increase what is already a massive temporary migrant worker program. (Time expired)