A COVID out break inside immigration detention centres was a disaster waiting to happen. The Australian Government and Border Force cannot claim they had not been warned, nor that they had insufficient time to respond.

Civil rights organisations, including the NSWCCL have, for months, been bringing our concerns to the Minister and his Department, however our representations fell on deaf ears. 

The Migration and Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Information Provisions) Bill is one of the most pernicious bills ever to be presented to the Australian Parliament, which has been criticised by both the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills.

Under this bill, information used by the Minister for Home Affairs to cancel a visa or to take away a person’s citizenship can be declared protected information, meaning the affected person would not be able to challenge this information. 

If the bill were to be passed:

• People who have lived in Australia since infancy will be sent to countries where they know nobody and have no means of support. (This already happens).
• People will have their visas cancelled, and be put in detention, possibly for many years. (This already happens too). Yet they will not be criminals and they will have no way to answer the accusations against them. 

The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties thinks that the bill is unjust, and should never have been brought to parliament. We wrote a letter to the Crossbench Senators urging them to vote against the bill.

More Information: read our letter to the Crossbench Senators

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties wrote to the Crossbench Senators urging them to vote against the reintroduced Migration Amendment (Strengthening the Character Test) Bill. 

If passed, this bill will further expand the grounds on which a person’s visa may be cancelled under section 501, especially on character grounds. This would include where a non-citizen has been convicted of a crime punishable by over two years’ imprisonment, regardless of when the person was actually sentenced to a term of imprisonment. This bill is a disproportionate response to visa holders who have committed minor crimes.

1. This bill will subject people who are of no danger to society to the rigours of indefinite detention, or to being deported. Families will be split. There is no evidence that “the community” would want such outcomes.
2. The bill would allow the Minister the discretion to cancel or refuse to issue a visa to a person who has been convicted of a designated offence but who may have received a very short sentence, or no sentence at all.
3. The bill presupposes that careful decisions of the courts, made after proper process, input by experts and the experienced judgement of judges, are inferior to decisions made by the Minister with the aid of his Department. Sentences, after all, take account both of the seriousness of the crime and of the desirability of deterrence—both of the individual and of others. That is, they take into account the dangers to the community.
4. The bill contains no exceptions for children.
5. The bill ignores the processes of rehabilitation.
6. A determination that a person fails the character test, depending on how it is made, means either that their visa must be, or may be, cancelled or refused. There right to merits review is available only in some cases. (The courts can only deal with errors of law.)

More information: read our letter to the Crossbench senators

CCL has been concerned about the treatment in Immigration Detention Centres, and particularly in Villawood, of detainees who are put into quarantine for fourteen days when they return from medical or dental appointments outside of the centres. 

Now The Saturday Paper reports that a detainee who was identified as a contact of a guard at Villawood who contracted COVID-19 has similarly been put into isolation in a room with no view outside and minimal furniture. Even worse, this time the light has been left on all night. This, as he complains, is a recognised form of torture.  

In the light of news that at least one guard has tested positive, NSWCCL is renewing its calls for refugees to be released from detention immediately.

Last week news broke that a guard at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA),  had tested positive for COVID-19 — the Delta variant.  MITA is one of the larger detention centres for asylum seekers and non-citizens who have had their visas cancelled under the character test provisions of the Migration Act.  

NSWCCL is increasingly concerned about the impact on detainees in our immigration detention facilities of current quarantine arrangements. In particular, the treatment of people who return to detention centres after medical appointments is unacceptable.

• They are confined in small rooms for a fortnight.
• There is nothing in the room except a bed, an open toilet and a wash basin.
• The windows are tinted, so detainees cannot see out.
• There is no access to personal possessions.
• No reading material is available - not even a Bible, Torah or Koran.
• There's no exercise outside of the room.
• A change of under clothes may not be available for several days. 
• There is a buzzer to call for attention, but people may have to wait for a lengthy period for a response. 

According to coverage by the Guardian, a refugee who has lived in Bris for a decade, with permanent residency, was given five days to respond to notice of intent to cancel his visa. The issue? He was required to document his identity for his citizenship application, but there's no reliable way to do so.

We have written to the Minister for Immigration, Alex Hawke, for clarification - we hope to hear that the man's citizenship application has been accepted.

The news coming out of Afghanistan in the wake of the military withdrawal is as disturbing as it was tragically predictable. 

NSWCCL is joining with the Refugee Council of Australia and others to call on the Government to take seven steps immediately:

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties wrote to Senator Marise Payne today calling for urgent action to rescue people employed by Australia in Afghanistan now, without long delays checking on health, security and character. 

Comments from our Government that those working through subcontractors are not eligible, or that the Government is following rules drawn up by the previous Labour government, are deeply disturbing.

It's time for action, not political point scoring.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties is calling DFAT to withdraw its 2019 Country Information Report - Sri Lanka, relied on to refuse protection to Tamils including the Murugappan family, due to concerns over its currency and accuracy.

DFAT's country report was criticised recently (27 May) by a UK Upper Tribunal, along with a similar UK report, which the UK Home Office removed the next day (28 May) as it was 'out of date'.