It was reported that the Australian government’s major Manus Island contractor, Paladin, negotiated
in 2017-19 to pay brokers DRM and Trakpro to arrange favourable visa outcomes for its workers to
come to Papua New Guinea. The Home Affairs department paid Paladin $423 million to run the
centre, but there were difficulties obtaining visas from the PNG government, and a significant
amount of money was paid to a Singapore bank account linked to Trakpro for a “marketing
arrangement.” At Paladin’s subsequent board meeting, the need for a ‘bribery and corruption policy’
was discussed. The Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo maintains that none of his officials were
aware of any PNG requests for improper payments, while internal Paladin emails suggest otherwise.
Labor’s Senator Keneally called on Home Affairs Minister Dutton to order an exhaustive search of
the Department’s emails.
The president of the Law Council of Australia called for more judges and an “urgent injection of
funds” to deal with a massive backlog of migration and refugee reviews. Pauline Wright said the
backlog had knock-on effects, such as delays in family law cases. The upward trend in the workload
was a result of increasing numbers of reviews by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the
Immigration Assessment Authority of the ‘legacy caseload.’
Sydney year 12 student Renuga Inpakumar spoke at the 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council in favour of two Tamil refugees being held in a Melbourne detention centre. Former Manus
detainee Abdul Aziz Muhamat also spoke, about his experiences of Australian detention, and the
serious situation he saw in Greek refugee camps.
The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) announced in Geneva on Wednesday a suspension of its visit to Australia in view of the current situation caused by the
coronavirus (Covid-19). It also postponed other upcoming missions. Australian refugee advocates
and experts were hoping to be able to guide the Subcommittee on the issues to look out for in their
assessment of immigration detention as part of their monitoring brief.
Refugees relocated from Manus Island to Port Moresby have been attacked twice in the past month
by local residents, with one refugee’s leg being broken and a security guard being hospitalised. They
claim to have received little support from the Australian government-funded contractor JDA
Wokman, which has a $72m contract to help former detainees settle in Port Moresby.
As the leader of the successful campaign to prevent Melbourne footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi from being deported to Bahrain in 2019, sports commentator Craig Foster has continued his support for
refugees, saying ‘I cannot unsee what I saw’. Several Australian actors, musicians and sports stars
have joined his Game Over campaign, around the theme “People trapped offshore are suffering. We
must get them to Safety.”
A study by Dr Daniel Ghezelbash of Macquarie University, of 18,196 cases decided at the AAT between January 2015 and December 2019, shows that only 4% of unrepresented applicants were successful, and asylum seekers with legal representation are seven times more likely to be successful. A policy influence may be greater government restrictions on public funding for free legal advice services. The appellant’s country of origin, and which Tribunal member hears the case is also significant to the outcome, although this needs more analysis, and is not necessarily due to subjective bias. The research only looked at asylum seekers who arrived by plane and had access to a review by the AAT.