Kim White
On August 11, the Gippsland Trades and Labour Council issued a call for a royal commission "into issues relating to the detention and the treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and immigration detainees".
In a media release, GTLC secretary John Parker and GTLC trustee Luke van der Meulen — who is also the mining and energy division president of the Victorian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union — stated:
"Asylum seekers who come to Australia are automatically locked in concentration camps. 'Unauthorised arrivals' face indefinite confinement. Thousands have been penalised for seeking asylum from persecution, a right they have under international law.
"The 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Australia is a party, prohibits arbitrary detention and provides that a detained person must be able to take proceedings before a court that can determine the lawfulness of detention and order release where detention is unlawful.
"Australia is also in breach of articles 3 and 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which protects the right to liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention.
"When Australia signed the Refugee Convention and Protocol it agreed to be bound by all of its provisions.
"Article 33(1) of the Refugee Convention states that refugees should not be returned 'in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened', yet nine asylum seekers who were held on Nauru were killed after being sent back to Afghanistan.
"The Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 is incompatible with both the Refugee Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
"This draconian piece of legislation will see people seeking asylum arriving on the mainland by boat being sent to a 'third country', the near-bankrupt island of Nauru. Children will again be forced to grow up in detention. Asylum seekers and refugees will face the prospect of indefinite detention on a remote island. Independent review is not available to asylum seekers offshore. Access to legal advice and representation will also be restricted.
"The mandatory confinement of asylum seekers and refugees is a crime against humanity and that the perpetrators of this crime should be prosecuted. It is unacceptable that any person is detained for more than three months without trial to determine their identity. The government must bring Australia's refugee policies in line with international human rights standards. It must end mandatory confinement, grant permanent protection to all TPV holders and shut down the abhorrent 'Pacific Solution'."