Refugees and Asylum Seekers

UN labels Australia’s Asylum Seeker Obsession “Out of Proportion”

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has asked that the “very politicized” debate regarding so-called ‘boat people’ be conducted in a less polarized manner.

High Commissioner Antonio Guterres, addressing an audience in Sydney, said that while people smuggling was a “nasty business” the victims of the trade should be protected by the authorities.

Commissioner Guterres stated that it was hard to consider approximately 6,000 people arriving in Australia by boat each year as a “very important problem” when approximately 57,000 and 100,000 asylum seekers arrived by boat to Italy and Malta, and Yemen respectively in the past year. A further 1,500 people were reported to have died in the Mediterranean Sea during this period whilst fleeing their home countries.

The NSW CCL has long championed the cause of asylum seekers, who in many cases have no legal way of escaping their situation. Click to read the NSW CCL Statement on Refugees and Asylum Seekers.

Mandatory Immigration Detention:

Baxter Detention Centre 'Behaviour Plan'

Global Solutions Limited ('GSL') is the private company that runs the immigration detention centre at Baxter in South Australia. CCL has recently obtained a copy of the 'Behaviour Plan' which details the internal handling of detainees in the 'Redgum' compound within Baxter. The plan makes for very disturbing reading indeed.

Baxter Redgum Compound Behaviour Plan (size: 111k)

Prime Minister's coastal surveillance taskforce

In June 1999, after several boats of asylum seekers arrived on the East Coast of Australia, Prime Minister John Howard set up a Coastal Surveillance Taskforce. It was headed by his close advisor, Max Moore-Wilton. In many ways the report sets out the Howard government's policy of border protection, long before the MV Tampa arrived at Christmas Island in August 2001.

The report is one the most important documents produced by the Howard Government. The report is no longer available on the Prime Minister's website, so CCL provides a copy here:

Report of the Prime Minister's Coastal Surveillance Taskforce (size: 5.5M)

'Inquiry into the Cornelia Rau matter'

Cornelia Rau disappeared from the psychiatric wing of a Sydney hospital in March 2004. About two weeks later she was stopped by police in Far North Queensland. She identified herself as a German tourist who had overstayed her visa. She was detained as an 'unlawful non-citizen'. She was now caught up in Australia's inhumane mandatory immigration detention regime.

Ms Rau was transferred to a Queensland prison, where she spent six months in detention with convicted criminals, and then transferred to the Baxter immigration detention centre.

In February 2005, Ms Rau’s true identity was established when her family contacted police after reading an article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled ‘Aid sought for ill, nameless detainee’ and contacted police. She was finally released from detention into the care of a psychiatric hospital in South Australia.

A former AFP Commissioner, Mick Palmer, was asked to undertake an inquiry into how this could have occurred. His Report of the Inquiry into the Cornelia Rau Matter was published in .July 2005. It condemned the prevailing culture of the Department of Immigration and the company that runs the detention centres.

You can read CCL's submission to Mick Palmer's inquiry'. In our submission we argue that conditions in Australia's mandatory detention centres are unacceptable. We also argue that Australia needs a Bill of Rights to ensure that there is judicial review of the propriety of such conditions, not just their legality.