Legislation to repeal the medevac transfer laws was introduced to parliament by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, and will now proceed to a Senate inquiry with a report date of 18 October. The inquiry, led by the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Legislative Committee, will give medevac supporters a public platform to argue for its retention.
The Guardian Australia reported that a number of refugees have been kept in a Brisbane hotel, in dirty rooms and under heavy guard, for up to six months. The Australian Human Rights Commission investigated the use of such alternative places of detention in May, resulting in a number of recommendations, including that hotels only be used ‘in exceptional circumstances and for very short periods of time’. The Australian Border Force defended its extended detention of refugees in the hotel as ‘appropriate’.
The United Nations subcommittee on prevention of torture announced it would visit Australia and Nauru in the coming months to inspect places of detention. The UN Human Rights inspectors will have the right to visit any place of detention, unannounced, including all immigration detention facilities. Australia is obliged to allow these inspections after ratifying the optional protocol to the convention against torture (Opcat) in December 2017.