Federal Court decision in the case of SBEG v DIAC was handed down on 4 June 2012. The following information is from the decision;

• The applicant arrived to Australia by boat in December 2010, just before his 17th birthday. He had no family members with him. 
• On 18 April 2011 the applicant was told that Australia had found him to be a refugee. 
• The boy's first known case of self-harm in detention occurred on 24 April 2011.
• On 16 May despite being known to be a refugee, the boy was transferred from Christmas Island to immigration detetnion at the MITA in Melbourne. 
• Several visits to mental health nurse, prescibed sleeping tablets, Valerian and engaged in self-harm on a number of occassions whilst at the MITA
• 4 July 2011 DIAC official tells the boy he cannot be moved to community detetnion as he has not passed his security clearance. One month earlier, the same DIAC official had told the boy that self-harm could affect his chances of being released into community detetnion. 
• The first time the boy was seen by a psychatrist was 15 August 2011. 
• 21 August 2011 the boy was transferred to detention at the Darwin Airport Lodge.
• 24 November 2011 the boy attempted suicide, there had been several more self-harm incidents prior to this and a report to DIAC from Life Without Barriers that he had been drawing pictures of people hanging. 
• 29 November 2011 the boy was moved back to the MITA in Melbourne. 
• 15 December 2011 the boy is advised he has received an adverse ASIO security fidning, which he cannot challenge. This makes him ineligible for a protection visa.* 

*This is the first known case of a minor receiving an adverse finding. The court accepted that the boy turned 18 at the very end of 2011.

In the Court case the applicant was attempting to prove that DIAC had neglected the boy's mental health needs with regard to the places and circumstances of his detetnion. 

Justice Besanko found that 'it is the form of detention which has and is causing the applicant's mental health problems'. Besanko J noted that medical evidence provided to the court also proved this. The decision details many self-harm attempts, attempted suicide, lip sewing and includes quotes from the applicant such as "A month would not pass before they take me out there as a corpse" (98) in reference to the possibility of being sent back to detention at the MITA, which the Court has been recently told is a consideration (103). 

Besanko J however also found that the 'applicant has not established that the alternative form of detention... would improve his mental health in a material way' (118) Besanko J did not rule in favour of the boy.

The result is that this mentally unwell young man, harmed immeasurably by Australia's immigration detention system now faces a lifetime in one or more of our detetnion facilities. 

Aside from this overall incredibly disturbing outcome, there are many other factors in this decision that cause concern. The Court seemed to accept wholly the evidence of DIAC (evidence provided by Acting Deputy Secretary, Immigration Detention Services Group, Gregory Kelly) pertaining to 'alternative places of detention' and the complete inflexibility of creating a 'detention-like' environment in the community so that the boy's mental health, emotional, social and developmental needs could be better met. Besanko J did note that he does 'not need to decide if Mr Kelly's opinions should be accepted' (36), because of the conclusion noted at para 118 (explained above). Great detail was included in the decision of detention conditions as described by Mr Kelly but not as described by witness, Pamela Curr (long-time refugee advocate well known to the applicant). 

There was no question whatsoever by medical professionals that the applicant would again engage in self-harm if placed in similar detention environments to those he had been held in for the past 19 months. 

This decision is deeply upsetting, most of all for the near certain devastation it will cause to one man's life. The decision is also upsetting for what it says about Australia's justice system. Australia locked up a boy for his final teenage years, he is now locked up possibly forever because of a finding that is not known to him and cannot be challenged in court,  the Federal Court and medical professionals are in agreement that the detention is harming him - nothing is done to remedy the situation. 

We understand there may be an appeal of this Court decision. 

(This piece is written by Sophie Peer and expresses her own opinions)

More on adverse ASIO findings

The latest victims of Australia's security system are two boys aged 6 and 8, their mother Ranjini and new step-father Ganesh. Ranjini and her sons arrived to Christmas Island by boat in 2010 and spent almost two years shuffled from one detention facility to another. Christmas Island, Leonora, Inverbrackie and then on to community detention in Brisbane. Ranjini, from Sri Lanka was widowed in 2006 and has been found by Australia to be a refugee in need of protection.

This is National Families Week in Australia. Families Australia describes the role of a family as "vital". 

Last month, known to DIAC, Ranjini married Melbourne man, Ganesh and moved there with her sons.  Not long into their first term at their new school the boys have been taken out of their home, away from their step-father and detained with their mum at Sydney's Villawood Immigration Detention Centre. The boys and Ranjini join at least 2 other families, and 4 other children in the Residential Housing Project there (still most definitely detention no matter what name the facility is given) - all of whom face a lifetime of immigration detention. 

ASIO made an adverse security finding against Ranjini which leaves her and her boys with no visa status and no way out of their predicament. Like 46 other refugees in Australia's immigration detention facilities, Ranjini cannot challenge the findings made against her, neither she nor her lawyers can even know what the claims against her relate to. Like other children at VIDC, this means indefinite detention for Ranjini's young sons. 

The 'solution' according to our Government is to lock up these people, including children, for the rest of their lives. They are refugees, they cannot be returned to their country of origin, they have an adverse security finding -  Australia has effectively blacklisted them, what other country will take them? Other nations have methods of oversight for their peak security agencies. There are random audits of decisions affecting refugees, there are independent monitors who can view decisions. In Australia there is nothing. Ranjini, Ganesh and her sons are left not knowing what they are being punished for and realising that their punishment is for life. Perhaps literally for life. 

As a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as a nation that celebrates something called National Families Week -  how can Australians stand for the indefinite of a child as being a 'solution' to anything? 

Perhaps there are issues of national security, but perhaps there are not. Agencies have been known to get things wrong, including ASIO; remember the case of Dr Haneef? Shouldn't the basic principle of innocent until proven guilty stand? Courts can manage sensitive information, lawyers can adhere to court guidance, there has to be a reasonable way for Ranjini and the 46 others in her position to have access to a fair trial and to natural justice. Surely there are degrees of 'adverse' findings? Not every adverse finding indicates someone is a terrorist. Surely arrangements around living in the community and reporting to authorities can be reached in some cases? 

Sophie Peer, Campaign Director, ChilOut

SMH piece from 16 May 2012 'the person may have had a cousin involved in some minor thing. An adverse assesment from ASIO doesn't make someone a terrorist'. 

Piece on Ranjini, The Age 14 May 2012

Here's the NSW Council for Civil Liberties and Liberty Victoria open letter to Federal Attorney General, Nicola Roxon from 18 Jan 2012 on this topic. 

The first thing about going to Leonora is the sheer remoteness of the location. I flew in from Perth via Laverton and it really left me completely baffled as to why the Government would choose this location to detain 140 boys, or anyone for that matter. I really am in the middle of nowhere.

Despite having arranged this trip over 2 months ago, many obstacles have been in put in place to my speaking with the boys. I arrived at 11:30am yesterday and it wasn't until 1pm that I was able to meet with any of the boys. The new rules I am forced to adhere to are that the meetings are to be group ones and with a Serco guard present. This is not at all what was agreed prior to my making the 32 hour journey to get here.

First impressions of a site vist were mixed. The soccer pitch is impressive, small but nice. There is a rec room with some ping pong tables, other activities and the demountable dedicated to art class was full. On the other hand, the floor of the prayer room was covered in doonas where you would expect to see carpet, the library was locked and the shelves were far from well stocked, most of the telephones were in public areas and there was no shade over the soccer pitch or the volleyball court. Today is about 25 degrees and sunny, I can't imagine January!

Meeting the boys was great but the environment certainly challenging. Building any kind of repore is very difficult in a hot room with a guard and 7 other boys all seated around a table. I did find out a few day to day details:

• To see a nurse a form must be completed or a referral made. If you are in pain, you cannot simply knock on the medical office door. I met a 16yr old boy who had been taken to Kalgoorlie for an operation one month ago, was in pain now and hadn't been seen by any medical professionals since the operation.
• 6 of the 10 computers work and each child is only permitted 30minutes of internet per day. It can take 15 minutes to log on.
• Skype used to be available but is no longer permitted. This means the only possibility for those who can have contact with their families to do so, is for boys to use their points to 'buy' phone cards at the canteen 
• Dinner is at 6pm if the boys are hungry after this the only option is to use their points at the canteen. The canteen is stocked with non-halal items containing gelatine. One child described being very upset when he found this out and had trusted that what was 'sold' would be appropriate.

More boys had just arrived at the centre and those who had been there a while told me this was welcome as it was more fun than if the centre was half full. Most described their time on Christmas Island as better than in Leonora.  

I am going back in tomorrow to meet more boys. The trip is certainly not as planned but I think it has pleased the boys to know there are Australians who do care about them and if nothing else, it is great to see first hand the physical conditions that the boys are in.

In today's Punch, Minister Bowen wrote a counter piece to ChilOut's article that was published on Monday 26th. 

It is great to know that the Minister is engaged and provided a response and we certainly will be in touch with him to discuss the issues further. However there are few counter points I would like to make to Minister Bowen's piece:

• I refute that I have misrepresented what happens to asylum seeker children when they land here. I would implore Minister Bowen, other MPs and the public to hear directly from the children who have been involved. And I know Minister Bowen has met many such children, including Najeeba whom I travelled to Canberra with last week. The impact of detention (even a short period of detention) is long-lasting and can be crippling. The service providers that Minister Bowen mentions could also attest to this, it is they and others in our community sector who pick up the pieces for a long time after detention. 
• In the piece on 26 March, ChilOut explained the housing shortage and that is was of course understandable to want appropriate care for these children. Our suggestion and that of so many other organisations, expert advocates, the IDC report and international commentators has been to expand the Community Detention (CD) program. ChilOut advocates for a reallocation of budget, away from remote detention facilites we know to be incrediby costly and incredibly damaging and in to more CD placements. That means, more housing and more trained staff. 
• The Minister says we got our facts wrong and that 63% of children were in CD not the approx. 50% that we quoted. ChilOut takes its figures from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. We have consistently asked that these be kept up to date, as it is publicly stated they will be. The last stats available are dated 31 January and show 528 children in locked detention and 534 in CD. We call that 'approximately 50%'. More up to date statistics were provided to Senate Estimates and were made avaiable on our fb page as soon as possible (today). At the end of the day is 63% good enough? We know there are challenges to expanding CD but it has existed now for seven years. It is tried and tested, we know roughly how many asylum seekers arrive to Australia by boat. We have detetnion centres at the ready and when we don't more are built or refurbished (Wickham Pt, Pontville, NIDC). Why not have appropriate CD accommodation at the ready?
• The Minister stated that Leonora is a transitional location for children and that kids there had access to 'educational services' and excursions. We will be seeking clarity on this. It is our understanding that the unaccompanied minors detained at Leonora are not permitted to attend school. The Minister sent these children to this location, 830km from Perth knowing this. 'educational services' could mean internet access, a teacher in the detention facility for a certain number of hours/wk. We are not sure, but we will keep you posted. In any case, attempting to educate inside an environment known to cause mental harm cannot be a good option for children. We are also unsure of what excursions would be available in this remote location - but again, will keep you posted! And still... why Leonora? What an incredibly costly exercise. ChilOut is booking a trip there and is looking at a cost of $2000 return for one person from Sydney. Surely it's cheaper and more efficient in the short and long term to expand CD?
• The Minister explained that 'children are spending less time in detention under this Government'. That is wodnerful, and ChilOut is genuinely pleased about that. However, our firm belief in our ten years of operation has been that children should be placed in immigration detention at all. This view is cemented by the 2004 HREOC report,  A Last Resort and the more recent IDC report, the release of which was the impetus for our visit to the Minister last week. 
• As for the fact that Minister Bowen mentioned me (Sophie Peer) five times by name in the article with not one reference to ChilOut or to the IDC report ... well that's just odd !

Around 200 teenage boys who are without an adult relative have been moved from immigration detention in Darwin to the remote site of Leonora. In Darwin the boys were able to attend local schools, in Leonora - they are not permitted an education. 

Apparently the federal Government was advised in late 2011 that the local Leonora schools could not accommodate large numbers of asylum seeker children. Despite this knowledge, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the Minister himself (who is the 'guardian' of these children) decided in 2012 to send the teenagers to Leonora anyway. 

This move comes at a time when the Federal Government is imposing welfare penalties on families who do not ensure that their children attend school for the majority of the term. What is the Minister doing to ensure the children in his care receive the education to which they are entitled? 

Read more

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Yep -  that's right one billion of our taxpayer dollars is headed to Serco over the next 4 years to run Australia's immigration detention centres. That's just to run them, it doesn't account for building new facilities should the Government get such a whim. It doesn't include the costs of the Department of Immigration, their staff and resources that are also expended within the centres and it doesn't include the years of ongoing costs once people are deemed to be refugees and released to the Australian community suffering from even more trauma than when they first arrived. 

Running, even building and running community detention facilities would be a far cheaper option. The Opposition has come out, not with any positive alternative but a slam about how this is evidence of a failed border protection issue. When will they stop? People seeking asylum are not a national security threat. There is no border issue here. We are an island, people seek asylum all over the world every day by whatever means they can. Do we need to close Tullamarine and Kingsford Smith airports for reasons of national security because around the same number of asylum seekers come here by plane as by boat? 

The costs of maintaining this broken system are ridiculous. There is no security, economic or humane argument to keep this system going. Get people in and out of immigration detention centres in 14 days (as many countries dealing with far greater numbers than Australia seem perfectly able to do), keep children in suitable environments not locked centres, get people in the community where they are able to start contributing and costs will drop enormously. I know it won't win points in the political game of asylum football but surely it will score a few for economic sanity. 

(Sophie Peer -  ChilOut Campaign Director)

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