Page: 4945
The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO [5.50 p.m.]: I raise an issue of great concern to so many Australians who feel we are becoming hard-hearted, that we have lost our compassion, and we do not care what happens to children in our society. I am referring particularly to children in immigration detention centres. As many honourable members may be aware, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission is conducting a national inquiry into children in immigration detention. I have taken the opportunity—and I wish that those on the Opposition benches in particular would do the same—to look at submissions from organisations which represent a very diverse range of interests across this nation and which are equally concerned about what we are doing to children in immigration detention centres.
The Queensland Teachers Union is concerned about the Federal Government's detention program. In a submission the union said that all refugees and asylum seekers who now attempt to enter Australia without government sanction—that is, if they actually manage to land in a place that has not been excised from our shores—are placed in detention centres. In the past, all the detention centres were located on the Australian mainland. Currently, there are detention centres in Nauru and on Manus Island. These centres form part of the "Pacific Basin solution", which is a very expensive and inhumane solution to the problem. Rather than utilising the Pacific Basin solution, the Federal Government could have saved money by giving asylum seekers $1 million each and an around-the-world first-class air ticket. The damage that has been done to these people while they have been in detention is appalling.
The worst aspect of the situation is the arbitrary detention of children over an extended period of time. This is in direct contravention of the rights of children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, which was signed by the Australian Federal Government. Not only are our actions morally wrong, they are in contravention of a United Nations agreement to which we are signatories. The Federal Government is abrogating its responsibilities to ensure that children in detention are treated in the least damaging and most humane way. Those children, who have come to Australia by a variety of means, are being held in detention centres that are run in a way that would not afford them a chance to remediate any problems they may have arising from experiences in their homeland or during the journey to Australia.
The children in the detention centres come from countries where there have been extensive civil wars, and they have seen the traumas of war. Often when they come here their families are separated. One parent may be stuck in Indonesia and the other has made it to Australia. The children are not necessarily co-located with the parent in Australia in the detention centre. The damage to the children, both psychologically and to their health, is considerable. Regardless of whether they are granted asylum in Australia or deported, they are damaged children. Whether they are released from detention and permitted to stay in Australia or sent back to where they came from, they are in a worse condition than when they arrived.
Members should be ashamed about this situation and up in arms about it. We hear members say in this Chamber that they want to do more about child abuse prevention in New South Wales. Let us start by ensuring that any child held under government orders is kept in a safe and secure environment. That is not happening to children in immigration detention centres. Worst of all, they are not even under the control of the Government. The centres are operated by an American-based multinational company, Australasian Corrective Services. Every time I hear the name I think of the acronym ACS, and I am reminded of the television program Robocop, in which everything is controlled by an all-present profit-making organisation known as OCM. It involves the same thing: an abrogation of government rights in the provision of basic services. We should express our heartfelt concerns and support the community organisations that call for these children to be dealt with in a humane way and to help with their rehabilitation, regardless of the outcome of their application for asylum.