ChilOut acknowledges the creation of the creation of the office of Naitonal Children's Commissioner as an important step towards protecting the rights of many, many vulnerable children in Australia. However, from our persepctive and in terms of Australia meeting its international obligations under the International Convention on the Rights of the Child towards childre seeking asylum this announcement is inadequate. 

The information provided by the Attorney General's office to date is not detailed and makes no reference to the situation of children in immigration detention. 

ChilOut's main concerns with the announcement are: 

• Within the Attorney General's announcement there was no mention of a guardianship role for unaccomapnied asylum seekers. We presume this to mean the Minister for Immigration will remain guardian of those children who arrive without a parent or guardian. ChilOut and many other groups have long advocated for an independent guardian and we are disappointed to see the issue ommited from discussions of the new office of National Children's Commissioner.
• The office appears to be focused on a policy / education role. These are important aspects of change and protection in Australia however they do not equate to increased rights protection for children in immigration detention. 
• We do not have detail on whether the Commissioner's office can receive complaints from people in immigration detention, how long issues take to be reolved or what the resolution and accountability processes are.

We very much hope that the Commissioner's office is infact a positive step for the protection of the myriad of vulnerable Australian children who have been without this office for so long. However, at this point it is difficult to see the improved rights protection for asylum seeking children with the degree of information provided thus far.

I know that around the ChilOut table we have thought about our country's asylum policy in this somewhat philosophical way but I was surprised to see this question in the foreword of a Joint Committee report into Australia's Immmigration Detention system. The exact words were:

At its heart, this inquiry poses fundamental questions about our national identity. How does Australia treat people seeking asylum? What weight do we ascribe to human rights on our own borders? Is there a standard for how a civilised, humane society responds when people arrive uninvited asking for protection, irrespective of who they may be, their mode of arrival, or the challenges they pose? Whether discussing policy in Parliament or around the kitchen table, we each have to ask ourselves: does Australia pass this test?

Locking up children, including unaccompanied children in remote locations for indefinite periods is surely a fail of that test? 

Particular areas of interest in the report are:

Expansion of community detention (CD) Seems to be the week for this discussion (see our piece in the Punch on Monday). The report gives the budget facts of this $629 million in 2011-12 to run our detention facilities vs $150million to run the CD program over the same period. Even expanding CD to accommodate hundreds more people would be more cost effective by far. 

Use of metropolitan locations The Committee stated that children and families in particular should not be in remote detention. 

Minister should not be guardian The Committee called for an independent guardian of unaccompanied minors. Many of the 3,500 submissions to the Inquiry raised concern with the fact that the person who can lock up a child is also the person meant to act in that child's best interests. 

Child protection. Human rights. For so long the issue of children in detention has been the victim of ridiculous political point scoring. The Committee firmly placed the discussion as being one of child protection acknowledging the need to include Children's Commissioners in the processes. 

The Committee's report made a number of recommendations specific to children: 

Recommendation 19  5.95 The Committee recommends that relevant legislation be amended to replace the Minister for Immigration as the legal guardian of unaccompanied minors in the immigration detention system. 

Recommendation 20  5.109 The Committee recommends that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship develop and implement a uniform code for child protection for all children seeking asylum across the immigration system. 

Recommendation 21  5.110 The Committee further recommends that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship adopt Memoranda of Understanding with children's commissions or commissioners in all states and territories as soon as possible.

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ChilOut welcomes the Committee's report but is keen to see action and implementation. As the IDC report released last week clearly stated, there is no need to detain a child for 3 months in any type of facility. ChilOut welcomes legislated maximum periods of detention for children and adults but would want to see legislation particular to children and a very clear commitment about where children were being accomodated during any necessary checks. 

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 !

A ten year old girl has managed to get a letter out to the public from her 'home' in Darwin's Airport Lodge. The little girl is one of 26 children who arrived to Australia by boat in May 2011, there were no parents on board the boat. Nearly 12 months on the girl and her companions are in their third detention centre and have no idea if, when or where they will be released. 

"We don't know what else we can do. We don't know who will help us."

The guardian of this little girl is the Minister for Immigration, the very same person with the power to lock her up. A guardian by definition is meant to 'act in the best interests of the child'. This has not happened in the case of these young children. 

There has been much speculation in the media about these children.

• The children are from Vietnam, not a usual source country of asylum seekers by boat to Australia in recent years. 
• The children are very young. The youngest was six years old when she arrived (she spent her 7th birthday in detention)
• Some of the children have gone missing from various detention arrangements- some since located, others still missing. There have been reports suggesting abduction (from Sandi Logan of DIAC) and of absconding (The Australian).
• Conflicting reports talk of the children's applications for asylum being in the process of determination, being denied and reports that they don't have asylum claims. 
• There have been suggestions of trafficking.

A report launched in Geneva today looks at the immigration detention practices of eight nations including Australia.

We are launching the Captured Childhood report on Melbourne at midday. Join us under cover at the main stage. We will be there until 2pm with a video camera recording people's messages of support, talking to the media and the public.

View the report at www.idcoalition.org

Independent MP, Rob Oakeshott has put forward a Private Members Bill to, in his words act as a 'circuit breaker' to the major parties and their political games around asylum seeker policy. So, what's it all about... Well we respect the intention to stop the game playing on this issue and we can only hope that what Mr Oakeshott has put forward is simply a talking point and not something he actually believes in. 

What would the Bill mean:

• The Immigration Minister of the day gets to pick a country where all asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat would be taken for processing -  just not Australia. Both countries, the UNHCR, the Red cross and the Internaitonal Organisation for Migration all have to agree. However the only 'safeguard' is that the country be part of the Regional Coopreration Framework (more on that later), and they allow a refugee determination process to occur. There is no reference to their human rights record, treatment of asylum seekers and refugees etc.
• Changes to the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Act 1946 resulting in Australia absolving itself of responsibilities to unaccompanied minors. There are no safeguards built in of whom would be the childrens' guardian, who would monitor their detention conditions, who would ensure they were educated, provided with health care and kept safe from trafficking, sexual slavery and other abuses common to 'informal' refugee and asylum populations across our region.
• Huge expense. Australia would be funding a giant processing centre in another country. When Nauru and Manus Island detention centres were operational we saw costs rise to hundreds of thousands of dollars per person detained. 

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

Amnesty International Australia have just completed a visit to five of Australia's immigration detention facilities, two of which are holding children. The Minister for Immigration has committed to getting 50% of children out of locked immigration detention centres. As far as statistics are being updated it seems that this commitment has mainly been kept (since coming into being in at the end of June 2011). The extremely worrying factor is issues like the case that Amnesty have now reported on; an unaccompanied child detained in the Darwin Airport Lodge (DAL) for nearly one year. We know that there are many, many more cases of children detained for 6 months and more in locked facilities completely inappropriate to their age and needs. 528 children will spend tonight in locked immigration detention facilities, keeping the release rate at 50% is simply not good enough. Children do not belong in these facilties, it cannot be argued that half of them should stay there. 

Here is Amnesty's report, summary and recommendations. DAL case is listed on page 5

Giselle is 18yrs old, from Northern NSW and contacted ChilOut expressing a desire to use her voice to speak about the treatment of her peers. 

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)