BY SARAH STEPHEN
Amnesty International's refugee coordinator, Dr Graham Thom, and former Labor Senator and United Nations Association of Australia president Professor Margaret Reynolds are among those who have backed a call for a royal commission into all aspects of Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, from mandatory detention and the effect of temporary protection visas and denial of family reunion, to the detention of asylum seekers on Pacific islands.
The call for a broad, all-encompassing investigation, which is being officially launched at a Sydney public meeting on December 3, will seek to hold the government to account for the human effect of all its asylum-seeker policies.
Trish Corcoran, an activist with the Sydney-based group Free the Refugees Campaign, calls the royal commission a "logical step" for the refugee rights movement.
"The number of inquiries being launched at the moment — the Senate inquiry on the children being thrown overboard incident, and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) inquiry into the effect of detention on children — reflects the deep level of concern among people at the moment," she said. "The more investigations there are, the more the truth about the government's treatment of asylum seekers will be exposed."
"But", says Corcoran, "neither a Senate inquiry nor a HREOC investigation have the powers necessary to really uncover the worst atrocities."
"This call for a royal commission into the treatment of asylum seekers is basically saying we need to throw the whole thing open — the entire asylum seeker policy — throw it open to public scrutiny and debate, to be challenged and questioned."
A royal commission would be different to other inquiries. An inquiry conducted by, for example, HREOC cannot compel witnesses to give evidence if they have an excuse or they feel that their privacy or employment might be threatened, whereas a royal commission could haul up government ministers, officials in the detention centres, public servants from the immigration department and their contracted security agents.
It is an offence to withhold evidence from a royal commission.
"A royal commission would also have a much bigger public profile and be better funded", Corcoran said. "The media would also pay far more attention to a royal commission than they do to other inquiries."
The example Corcoran says she has in mind is the 1980s royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, which "put an enormous amount of information on the public record" about the government's attitudes to indigenous people.
That royal commission was established in October 1987, after years of campaigning by the Committees to Defend Black Rights, set up after the death in custody of John Pat in 1985.
The commission "gave the anti-racist movement a political campaign to focus around and brought many Aboriginal activists and their supporters across the country together in a united campaign", Corcoran said.
Others supporting the call to date include Thang Ngo, the spokesperson for the Unity Party and a Fairfield councillor, Sister Susan Connelly of the Mary MacKillop Institute for East Timorese Studies, Father Nguyen Van Cao, the director of the Jesuit Refugee Service director, Max Lane of Action in Solidarity with the Asia Pacific and Beryl Mulder, the president of the Multicultural Council of the Northern Territory.
Angry about the denial of information about the asylum seekers, Sister Susan Connelly told Green Left Weekly, "What does 'free press' mean when weeks go by without journalists and photographers being allowed access to people attempting to get to Australia? What is the import of Australian elected officials accusing these same people of throwing children overboard and falsely claiming photographic evidence?"
She believes it is "imperative that the decisions and actions of the government and opposition be thoroughly investigated as soon as possible. There are important human issues at stake."
"It's morally wrong for the government to lie about children being thrown into the ocean for political gain in the election", said the Jesuit Refugee Service's Father Nguyen Van Cao.
"The policies and actions to deter refugees and asylum seekers have violated international treaties and conventions to which Australia is a signatory."
Unity Party spokesperson Thang Ngo told Green Left Weekly: "The Australian people have only heard one side of the story and that's from a government obsessed with winning an election. We have not heard from the asylum seekers themselves.
"An inquiry with the power of a royal commission is the only way the Australian public can get impartial information in relation to the treatment of asylum seekers."
Max Lane of Action in Solidarity with Asia-Pacific believes a commission should investigate "quite a few things".
"What were the real considerations behind the decision to use the navy against refugees — 'border protection' or votes? How much force was actually used? How legal is all of this, both in terms of Australian common law and international agreements? Also, what are the real conditions in the detention centres? How many people's rights are being violated in these jails? What pressure was used on the Pacific island neighbours of Australia to get them to take the refugees?"
Lane believes there is "certainly no contradiction" between calls for a royal commission and campaigning: "People are already suspicious that there is deception. Uncovering it in a very public way is a very important thing to help swell the numbers of people at demonstrations from the hundreds to the thousands."
From Green Left Weekly, December 5, 2001.
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