Australian watchdog wants end to detention of children

Transcript

The president of Australia's Human Rights Commission has called for an end to the government's policy of locking asylum seeker children up in mandatory detention.

Professor Gillian Triggs says there are about 900 children in Canberra's detention centres, including 220 on Nauru.

As part of a wide-ranging inquiry into that's expected to be tabled in parliament later this year, Professor Triggs has gained access to all the detention centres where children are being held, except the one on Nauru.

She told Jamie Tahana most of the children have been held for over a year, which she says is unjustifiable.

GILLIAN TRIGGS: I mean the core position is that children should never be detained except as an absolutely last resort, and then only for as limited a time as is absolutely necessary. So that is the international legal position. And it's a position that of course is part of my mandate, the international treaties, particularly the Treaty on the Convention of the Rights of the Child. So that's the context. And of course the reality at the moment is that Australia hold something like 650 children in Australia and Christmas Island and another 222 on Nauru. So that's getting up for 900 children are being held in detention. And most of them have been held for well over a year and some of them over two years. And that really is beyond anything that could be acceptable in the interests of the State for national security reasons to want to work out what their identity checks are, health checks and so on. So we feel that the new government has now been in power for 13 months. It's time that they gave serious consideration to getting all of the children out into the community or if necessary into community detention with their parents.

JAMIE TAHANA: And now you've visited most camps, what kind of conditions are these children being kept in? Do they have access to say play, education and stuff?

GT: Well I should say I have had access to every detention centre where children are held, except Nauru. Because my legislation does not allow me to have an extra territorial role. So I have not had the permission either of my own government, nor of the Nauruan government to attend Nauru. So the inquiry has had to look at evidence that has been produced from Save the Children, Amnesty International, from people who've been detained there, medical service staff, and others, particularly from Save the Children, who have been helping us with objective evidence as to the condition of the children. I think the evidence that we've been given and the evidence that's been very clear into our public hearings is that, conditions vary enormously detention centre to detention centre. But easily, on the evidence, easily the most egregious conditions, the most harmful conditions for children, are on Christmas Island and Nauru. But I should stress that we will report formally through the Attorney General to Parliament very shortly and then the full findings and will be made public. But for the moment we've simply given a draft to the government to give them an opportunity to comment. So I can't give you a detailed description of what our findings and recommendations are.

JT: But relying on Save the Children though, I mean last week we did have allegations from Save the Children, quite troubling allegations of child abuse on Nauru. Without being able to go Nauru and see for yourself and stuff, and of course we had suggestions that some of this evidence was fabricated; how hard has this been to get a picture of Nauru?

GT: Well it is extremely difficult. We have a range of different points of view. For example the families themselves can make complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission under our normal complaints process and they have done so. So we have their own evidence, they email us, write to us, ring us and make formal complaints. So there's a range of evidence from detainees themselves. Then there is evidence from people like the Director of the Mental Health Services for the international health and medical services that provide those services to all the detention centres, including Nauru. And that Director has given us very, very powerful, objective data on the decline in mental health of children. And we've also had evidence from departments, from those people who have been in detention in the past and are now released and are part of the Australian community fortunately on visas. We've also had experts from Maximus who deal with children's matters. We've had evidence from Amnesty International and from all sorts of stakeholders across the community. So what I'm saying is that we've got quite a lot of data now which is subject to critical scrutiny, to scholarly scrutiny, and we believe it will stand up as objectively honest and balanced evidence about the effects of prolonged detention on these children.

JT: This full inquiry on the detention policies is in it's final stages, when do we expect it to be completed and to be presented to Parliament with recommendations and all?

GT: We're of course very keen to get the report before Parliament before Christmas. Simply because the public's very well aware that this report is coming, and I think everybody is very keen to know exactly what the objective findings and the recommendations are. But there are some procedural steps along the way. One is the department's got to have a proper process to check the accuracy of what we're saying, to comment that it might be imbalanced in some way, and we will try to take on their comments and concerns. Then it goes to the printer, then it goes to the Attorney. But the Attorney is legally bound to table it in Parliament within 15 sitting days of Christmas. But as may be very well the case, I imagine in New Zealand as well, there aren't 15 sitting days before Christmas. So we're really hoping that the Attorney will table this earlier than that, which means that it will be in the public arena before we go into recess at Christmas time.