Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Monday, before the sun came up, Serco took two Sri Lankan Tamil refugees from the cramped Darwin cabin that they had been kept in for more than a year. They were put on a charter flight and sent back to Nauru. Parmika and her husband, Kirubakaran, had asked to go back to Nauru. Kiru has been accepted by the United States as a refugee, and they're waiting to complete the process to have Parmika accepted as well. Even so, they figured they were better off on Nauru than being locked up in indefinite detention in Darwin, in the electorate that I represent. The conditions that they and nine other refugees were living in were appalling: each sleeping in single bunk beds, not getting the medical treatment that they were brought to Darwin for and not being told what the medications that were being administered to them were. A migration agent told me their diet was poor, due to their being provided with take-away meals, from the Mercure Hotel, that are routinely unpalatable. The migration agent said, 'They are often given reused leftovers, and it's regularly unhygienic, with hairs, insects and even maggots.' That's deplorable, disgusting and unacceptable.

Parmika and Kiru told one of my staff that the only good thing about their year—a year—in detention in Darwin, in a small cabin, was the kindness shown to them by Darwin locals. I commend those Territorians, who have been keeping up the fight and working so hard to get these refugees released. They are demonstrating tremendous humanity, and it's shame the federal government can't do the same.

There are still nine refugees, all Iranian, held in Darwin. All of them have been there for more than a year. I've met with representatives of all three families that remain. They've sat with me and told me about their suffering and their struggles. I met with 33-year-old Abbas Maghames, who's been detained along with his father, Yaghoob, his mother, Malakeh, and his sister Hajar. He's angry and frustrated. His family are Ahwazi Arabs from south-western Iran, who are discriminated against by that government. Their participation in politics and employment is limited, they cannot exercise their cultural rights, and they've been arrested and imprisoned because of their religion. The Maghames family have been in some sort of detention for eight years, since 2013. They've been on Christmas Island and Nauru. They were brought to Darwin more than a year ago for medical treatment that they still haven't received. Their mental and physical health is suffering enormously.

I also met with Mojtaba Hamedani. He's been detained alongside his wife, Afsaneh, and her son Behnam. He's a construction specialist and his wife was a hairdresser for more than 20 years. Behnam was a child when they fled Iran in 2013 and never got to finish his schooling. Mojtaba says, 'We spent seven years of our short lives with no prospects to rebuild our lives, no safety and inadequate health care on Nauru.'

The extended suffering of all these refugees has been perpetrated by those opposite. They should hang their heads in shame. I received a letter this week co-signed by a number of angry Darwin residents—lawyers, public servants, academics, nurses, plumbers, teachers and administrators. They call the alternative place of detention in Darwin 'a concentration camp'. They write, 'These refugees were incarcerated in a concentration camp, built on Nauru, for seven years in indescribable conditions: searing heat, tent accommodation, scant privacy, abuse and exposure to all kinds of horror. This included lip stitching and other forms of self-mutilation, including self-immolation, assaults, child abuse, sexual assaults and mental breakdowns. PTSD, severe anxiety disorders, severe depression were prevalent. They were given numbers, not names, to identify themselves, in the deliberate, dehumanising cruelty which has been Australia's policy towards these innocents.'

They call this policy barbaric, and they're not wrong. They call this Australia's disgrace, and it must end. I call on Minister Dutton to release these remaining nine refugees into community detention immediately. Let them out, and shut it down immediately.