In the media

Labor’s appalling migration bill is a ‘race to the bottom’ with Peter Dutton

The government’s plan to ban mobile phones and introduce sniffer dogs in immigration facilities will create Australian-made Guantanamo-esque detention camps.

This Labor re-run of Peter Dutton’s 2020 proposal to ban immigration detainees from accessing mobile phones is an appalling race to the bottom.

In 2020 Labor’s Andrew Giles said there was, “no justification for blanket prohibitions”.

While Josh Burns, the current Labor Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, said Peter Dutton’s 2020 bill was “not about a proportionate response from government but about cruelty and politics”.

What has changed, other than Labor running scared of Peter Dutton?

While Labor has been inching closer to the Coalition on immigration policy, they are no longer trying to hide the fact that their immigration policies are a ‘cut and paste’ of Peter Dutton’s.  

Mobile phones are a lifeline for people in immigration detention helping them to communicate with family, friends and the outside world. This is an attempt by Labor to silence a Peter Dutton scare campaign on immigration while silencing any criticism from detainees – preventing them from speaking to journalists, or advocates.

Tony Burke’s assertion that Labor is simply implementing a recommendation of the Human Rights Commission is disingenuous. Labor is failing to prioritise the 29 other recommendations that would make Australia’s immigration detention regime more humane. For example, where is the urgency to invest in education and vocational training programs, increase access to support services or drug and alcohol rehab programs? 

The way the draft legislation stands, the government of the day could also decide to confiscate reading glasses from detainees if the Minister deemed them a prohibited item. It’s scary to think what restrictions a Dutton-Government could implement under these reforms.

While the government argues Border Force need these powers, Police already have the power to conduct searches within detention centres if there is suspected illegal activity taking place, and as law enforcement officers they are the appropriate executors.

From a human rights perspective, this legislation sets a dangerous precedent that could be applied elsewhere in society in the future. Instead of cowing to a Peter Dutton scare campaign on migration, Labor should show some backbone and rethink this approach to managing migration detention centres.

Australia is better than this. We should be creating laws that ensure those in immigration detention are treated with dignity, are processed in a timely manner and do not suffer in dangerous environments.

The first step should be implementing all of the Human Rights Commission’s recommendations on reforming immigration detention. The second step should be a Royal Commission into our treatment of asylum seekers.

Earlier this year I introduced a bill to impose a strict 90-day limit on immigration detention and prohibit the detention of children. Rather than engaging in a race to the bottom on immigration, the government should be implementing positive reforms that end the cruelty and human rights violations that have characterised Australia’s detention regime since the 1990s.

ENDS