Former NSW Premier and Liberal Party elder Nick Greiner has called on the Abbott Government to do more to release children from detention centres.
Describing as “very sad” the government’s attack on the Australian Human Rights Commission’s (AHRC) report, The Forgotten Children, Mr Greiner has said that it’s time Australia caught up with the rest of the civilised world and scrapped it’s policy of indefinitely holding children in detention centres.
Mr Greiner, an advisor to Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, came to Australia from Hungary as a child and is appalled that Australia is the only nation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that detains children indefinitely.
“The principle that Australia … finds it necessary to be virtually the only civilised nation that does this, I think is just abhorrent,” he said. Noting that the government’s tough policy on immigration was a clear success he said that it was time “to look at the humanity of what we do.”
He also dismissed the government’s allegations of political bias in the AHRC report, “It’s typical of our inability to have a sensible debate on the substance of issues,” he said. “It’s totally not surprising that the [commission] found the mandatory detention of children, especially unaccompanied children, has very serious deleterious effects on their mental and physical wellbeing.”
Current NSW Premier Mike Baird, who said yesterday that children should be released from detention centres, backed the sentiment. “That’s something I’ve supported for a long time,” he responded when asked if children should be released from detention centres.
Former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has also publicly stated that Tony Abbott handled the publication of the report badly. “If the Government had wanted to handle the matter sensibly, they would have said they recognise there have been abuses,” Mr Fraser told Macquarie Radio.
“[They would have said] they will examine those abuses and have been, indeed, since they got the report in November – which, obviously, they haven’t been – and they would have thanked the Commission for its work and said, ‘we’ve got to get children out of detention as soon as possible’.”
“Now, instead of doing that, they’ve chosen to attack the commission as a body and to attack the chairperson in particular, which I think is outrageous. I know Gillian Triggs. She’s a very good, distinguished lawyer,” he said.
Read more at SMH.com.au
Read more at ABC.net.au
Read The Forgotten Children report
Opinion: It’s not the children’s fault
It’s easy to understand why Tony Abbott would have felt under attack last week, but taking aim at the AHRC for doing its job wasn’t the way to regain public acceptance.
The release of The Forgotten Children report should have been a time to quietly acknowledge the apparent success of the government policy to stop boats bringing those seeking asylum into Australia and to address the issue which should concern all Australians; that is keeping children in detention centres indefinitely is inhumane. Given that two weeks earlier the Attorney General George Brandis had sent a member of his team to suggest that the head of the AHRC, Gillian Triggs, resign from her post, it is fair to assume there must have been an inkling of what was in the report. Time enough surely to at least consider proposals on how to end this abhorrent practice.
It should of course be noted that the number of children currently in immigration detention centres has dropped dramatically over the last two years. As of the end of January 2015*, there were 212 children detained in Australia and a further 119 in Nauru. However, it is still too many. And of those released, 1550 are detained in the community and 2423 are living on bridging visas, giving their parents no right to work and access to limited benefits.
If indeed the stopping of the boats has been as successful as the government claims, there can be no harm in expediting the hearing of the cases of those who have arrived with children. If no boats can get through, then this cannot be deemed to be an ‘incentive’ for others to travel with children in an attempt to have their claims for resettlement in Australia treated more favourably.
For us to believe that ‘good government” did indeed start last week, it’s time for said government to stop attacking the messenger and start doing something ‘good’.
*Figures provided by Chillout.org
Do you think it is inhumane to keep children in immigration detention centres? Should those who arrived with children have their cases expedited? Do you agree with the Prime Minister that the AHRC report, The Forgotten Children, is politically biased against the current government?
