Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This is a report, as you have just said, Mr Acting Deputy President Chapman, from the Immigration Ombudsman. It is one of a number of reports regarding 81 people who have been in long-term immigration detention in Australia. Senators would recall that these reports are a consequence of agreements reached and changes announced by the Prime Minister around the middle of last year in the wake of the absolute disgrace of the Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon incidents. But there were also other incidents that came to light not only of people who were wrongfully detained but of people who had been ‘longfully’ detained—very long in these cases. These reports all relate to people who have been in long-term detention, and it is unfortunate to say that some of them remain there.

These reports only have numbers as personal identifiers. It is totally appropriate for privacy reasons not to detail people’s names, but we should not forget that these are not just numbers; these are people, these are human beings. Whatever the background of the circumstance and whatever they may have done leading up to their immigration detention, none of these people have been convicted of any crime or even been accused of any crime.

The first example, case number 74, is the third report by the Ombudsman on this woman. She has remained in immigration detention since the first and second reports were provided to the minister and tabled in this parliament back in March. She is still there. She has been in detention since January 2003—getting close to four years. As with all of these cases, there are complexities and difficulties, and I am always prepared to acknowledge that immigration law throws up some hard cases. But I also think it has to be acknowledged that, except in the most extreme circumstance—in fact, I seriously cannot think of a single circumstance—somebody who is not deemed to be a threat to the community, is not a security risk, is not a health risk and has not been charged, convicted or accused of any crime should not still be locked up after four years. There is simply no circumstance that I can think of where that is justified, yet that is what we are still doing.

People should not mistakenly assume that because of all the announcements about changes that were made last year—and there were positive changes; they did move things in the right direction—that nobody would be locked up for years at a time. It is still happening. It is not happening as often but it is still happening.

The Ombudsman has recommended in this case, for example, that the minister consider giving the person a pending bridging visa with work rights while the issues concerning her immigration status and removal from Australia are resolved, taking into account the length of time spent in detention and there being no immediate prospect of her removal from Australia. There was an apparent lack of action by the department of immigration between January 2003 and November to resolve her case, and she does not appear to pose a risk to the community.

The Ombudsman also says and assesses:

This case does not seem to be any closer to a resolution nearly a year later.

Yet she remains in detention regardless of the recommendation that the Ombudsman made. There we have the flaws in this process. It is good that there is a scrutiny mechanism to make sure that people are not forgotten but, at the end of it all, there is still no legal power to prevent people being locked up indefinitely, despite them not having committed a crime or even been accused of one.

The Ombudsman recommended in the report at the start of this year that this person be put out of detention into the community on a bridging visa while the circumstances are resolved, because there was no immediate prospect of them being resolved. That was clearly correct because it is still not resolved nearly a year later, but the woman is still in detention and it is simply unsatisfactory.

There is no justification for this sort of continued long-term imprisonment. It runs against the whole foundation of our democracy and our rule of law, and it is a reminder of why we still need to amend the Migration Act to get rid of mandatory detention. The Democrats opposed it nearly 15 year ago, and we will continue to move to get it removed from the Migration Act. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.