The Australian government’s policy on the detention of refugees is a disgrace verging on the inhuman. This week an all-party parliamentary committee reported on the policy. They found some asylum seekers are cooped up in filthy cells with overflowing toilets. They found asylum-seekers spending months in detention centres with nothing to do. They were left wandering aimlessly through the camp. At night they were checked by torchlight. At Port Hedland the committee said conditions were, “horrendous” and “disgraceful”. Detention centre staff had even tried to prevent MPs from seeing one block – – clearly they had something to hide.
These are not the findings of some of politically motivated group. Nor are they the findings of some pro-migrant or pro-refugee organisation. Rather, they are the findings of a parliamentary committee containing both Government and Opposition MPs. The recommendations and findings they made were unanimous.
But the minister for immigration, Philip Ruddock, and Prime Minister John Howard could barely have had time to skim through the report before they came out rejecting its key findings and recommendations. Clearly, their minds had been made up that there were more votes in the detention of asylum-seekers than applying decency and humanity to fellow human beings.
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