Weekly media wrap - 12 December 2016

A two-week coronial inquest into the death of Hamid Kehazaei, an asylum seeker who had been detained on Manus Island, concluded this week in Queensland. Kehazaei died at Brisbane's Mater Hospital as a result of severe sepsis from a leg infection in September 2014. The inquest heard new evidence from medical staff and health professionals, as well as from Department of Immigration and Border Protection staff. Evidence detailed the worsening condition of Kehazaei while being treated in detention and the limited responses that ultimately led to his death.

In the United States, two influential Republican politicians wrote to the Obama administration demanding declassification of information about the deal with the Australian Government to resettle refugees currently on Manus Island and Nauru. Commentators have recognised a potential risk to this resettlement deal when Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office in early 2017.

This week, around 500 teachers across Australia will wear shirts with messages calling for an end to Australia’s offshore detention of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has condemned the protest, coordinated by Teachers for Refugees, as ‘absolutely inappropriate in classrooms’ because ‘teachers should be focused on teaching’.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce offered support for the replication and expansion of a successful refugee resettlement model in rural northern New South Wales. The arrival of three refugee families has helped to revive the small town of Mingoola. 

Weekly media wrap - 6 December 2016

Activists protesting Australia’s refugee policies glued their hands to the railing in the House of Representatives public gallery on Wednesday, causing Question Time to be adjourned. Protests continued on Thursday. The Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance took responsibility for the protests.

President-elect Donald Trump stated that he would stop refugees from the Middle East from entering the US ‘dead cold flat’, throwing into doubt the resettlement deal with Australia. Prime Minister Turnbull played down these doubts, claiming that the Australian government was ‘confident that [the deal would] continue through the change of administration’.

The inquest into the 2013 death of asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei began this week. Kehazaei died of sepsis from a leg infection 13 days after presenting for treatment at the Manus Island clinic. The inquest heard that Australia’s immigration department frequently dismisses doctors’ advice to transport critically ill detainees to hospital. 

Weekly media wrap - 29 November 2016

Crossbench senators denied their support to the controversial bill to impose a lifetime ban on all asylum seekers who arrive by boat from entering Australia. Without this support, the bill will fail to pass unless key amendments are made. Relatedly, a parliamentary joint committee on human rights released a report on Tuesday stating that the bill in its present form could constitute both direct and indirect discrimination. Despite this, the five Liberal members of the committee maintained that the ban should be legislated.  

Volker Turk, the UNHCR’s assistant high commissioner for protection, called the Australian government’s failure to process the 30,000 asylum seekers in the community on bridging visas ‘a social time bomb’. He expressed to Fairfax Media that it is ‘very urgent’ to resolve this issue, in order to ‘make sure that people can get on with their lives’.

Turk also stated that UNHCR staff would help with screening and resettlement in Australia’s refugee deal with the US, but only as a ‘one-off’. The details of the deal remain unclear, with two senior Republicans writing to the Obama administration to appeal for more information.

Results of a new Monash University survey show that although Australians strongly support taking migrants through the humanitarian program, a majority of Australians disapprove of asylum seekers arriving by boat. Only 2% of those surveyed agreed that Australia’s poor treatment of refugees was the biggest issue facing Australia today.

Weekly media wrap - 22 November 2016

The UNHCR submitted a mental health report to the Senate inquiry into abuse, self-harm and neglect on Nauru and Manus Island. The study reported psychological disorders in 88 per cent of the 181 asylum seekers and refugees who were examined, including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the report, these findings are ‘amongst the highest recorded rates of any surveyed population’. The study was included in a broader UNHCR submission.

In a Sky News interview with Andrew Bolt, immigration minister Peter Dutton stated that former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser made mistakes in allowing certain migrants into Australia in the 1970s. Claiming that a large number of foreign fighters in conflict zones are descendants of these migrants, Dutton argued that Australia is paying for Fraser’s errors. When challenged during Question Time by opposition leader Bill Shorten, Dutton responded: ‘Of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from second- and third-generation Lebanese-Muslim background’. The Lebanese Muslim Association responded, labelling Dutton’s comments reckless.

Dutton told ABC’s Australian Story that the federal government may accept more refugees from Syria and Iraq. The immigration department has reported that of the 12,000 extra humanitarian visas announced under the Abbott Government in September 2015, 6507 refugees have so far been settled in Australia. Defending the often ‘long and protracted’ security process involved in screening and settling refugees, Dutton suggested that ‘if people have faith in the integrity of the process … it does give the government the ability to expand’. 

Francois Crepeau, United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, concluded an 18-day visit to Australia, finding that hate speech, xenophobia and nationalism have increased. Impressing the importance of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth), Crepeau stated: ‘Politicians who have engaged in this negative discourse seem to have given permission to people on the street to act in xenophobic ways and to allow for the rise of nationalist groups’.

In a final meeting between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and US President Barack Obama, the leaders discussed the agreement for US resettlement of refugees from Nauru and Manus Island. It remains unclear whether President-elect Donald Trump will honour the agreement after he assumes office on January 20, 2017.

Weekly media wrap - 15 November 2016

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that the United States will resettle some of the asylum seekers currently being held in Australia’s offshore detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island. Turnbull stated that this will be a ‘one off’ deal and priority will be given to the ‘most vulnerable which are family units’. American officials will begin assessing refugees in the next few days. The US resettlement deal is one of several that the government is reportedly working on.

731 asylum seekers held on Manus Island filed a claim against the Papua New Guinea Government. They are seeking enforcement of the April decision by the PNG Supreme Court that the detention centre on Manus is unconstitutional and should be shut down. They are further requesting monetary compensation for breach of their constitutional rights. The court rejected an earlier similar claim because it was not signed by the asylum seekers themselves, but by their legal representation.

Wilson Security, the firm contracted by the Australian Government to protect asylum seekers in offshore detention centres, admitted that it has not passed on all incident records from the Nauru centre to the immigration department. A submission by Wilson to the Senate inquiry into serious incidents on Nauru noted that the company ‘did not disclose reports that it designated as “information reports” to the department’.

On Q&A, Canadian journalist Naomi Klein called Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers ‘shocking’ and an ‘atrocity’. Klein likened Australia’s policies to several of Donald Trump’s election proposals. 

Weekly media wrap - 7 November 2016

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton provided further detail about the Coalition’s proposed permanent ban on entry for asylum seekers who attempt to come to Australia by boat, even if they are genuine refugees, stating that it was designed to stop refugees from country hopping. Mr Dutton explained that the government intended to discourage asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island from going to a third country in order to apply for a visa to Australia. 

Mr Dutton also said that the ban sought to prevent asylum seekers and refugees who arrived in Australia by boat from entering into ‘sham relationships’ overseas in order to enter Australia, and suggested that the ban would help to facilitate resettlement arrangements with third countries for refugees currently on Nauru and Manus Island.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten called the proposed ban ‘ridiculous’ but did not commit to opposing the government’s plan until Labor had an opportunity to consider the enabling legislation. In response to the announcement, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd intervened in domestic politics for the first time in three years, describing the ban as ‘bad policy and bad politics’.

At an international level, a regional representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that the ban appeared to be in breach of Article 31 of the Refugee Convention, which prohibits the imposition of penalties on refugees on account of their manner of entry or presence in a country.

Weekly media wrap - 31 October 2016

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced new legislation that would bar asylum seekers who attempt to arrive in Australia by boat from ever receiving an Australian visa. This legislation would extend to refugees, but not to children, and would apply retroactively from 19 July 2013. The government expects to introduce these changes to the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) when Parliament sits on 7 November.

The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court rejected a court application made on behalf of asylum seekers held on Manus Island for them to be returned to Australia and compensated for being illegally detained. The application was deemed invalid as the men had not signed it themselves. Ben Lomai, the lawyer representing the asylum seekers, argued that he was unable to obtain these signatures due to the nature of their detention.

The New York Times has continued its examination of Australia’s asylum seeker policies by publishing an article by Australian journalist Waleed Aly condemning Australia’s offshore processing system.  

Weekly media wrap - 24 October 2016

Amnesty International released a report detailing evidence of child abuse and poor living conditions in Australian detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island. The report accuses the Australian Government of inflicting intentional harm on refugees and asylum seekers as part of attempts to deter potential offshore arrivals. In response to the report, The New York Times published an editorial condemning the Australian Government’s violation of international law.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection responded to the report late on Monday, saying Amnesty was repeating claims that had already been refuted by the Department and its contractors. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull rejected claims of state sponsored torture as ‘absolutely false’.  

The Australian Government passed an amendment to the Australian Border Force Act 2015 (Cth) which removes prohibitions on health professionals speaking out on the conditions in Australia’s offshore detention facilities. The amendment came after Doctors for Refugees launched a High Court challenge to the law.

Peter Dutton and the Nauruan government criticised an ABC Four Corners program aired on Monday night about refugee children on Nauru. Gaven Morris, the ABC’s director of news, defended the program, saying the lack of access to the island forced Four Corners to rely on remote interviews and the testimonies of staff who had worked there.

Weekly media wrap - 17 October 2016

After conducting an internal review of the ‘Nauru files’, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection stated that ‘the contention that [the files] represent “thousands” of cases of abuse … cannot be supported’. The department’s review concluded that 23 of the 2123 leaked incident reports related to ‘critical’ incidents, 281 related to ‘major’ incidents and 1819 related to ‘minor’ or ‘unclassified’ incidents.

Immigration minister Peter Dutton claimed that 22 Syrians whose applications for refugee resettlement in Australia were rejected for suspected terrorist links ‘may well have slipped through the net’ if processing had been rushed. Dutton has consistently stated that his priority in resettling refugees is the ‘security of our country’. 

Weekly media wrap - 10 October 2016

A UN report condemned Australia’s regional processing centre in Nauru. The report urges the Pacific nation to improve its treatment of asylum seeking and refugee children living in the Regional Processing Centres. 

In response to a question from the opposition, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection revealed it is spending more than $8 million on communications per year.

The European Union signed an agreement with the Afghan government allowing member states to deport an unlimited number of the country’s asylum seekers, and obliging the Afghan government to receive them.

3 October marked the third anniversary of the death of 368 people off the coast of Lampedusa. Since that time, more than 11,400 people have died at sea in the Mediterranean. 

Weekly media wrap - 3 October 2016

The Guardian revealed that Wilson Security, the company paid by the Australian government to provide security in offshore detention centres, ‘hired a private investigator at least twice in 2015 to determine the sources of confidential disclosures to news organisations and activists’. A spokesperson for immigration department secretary Michael Pezzullo stated that ‘The secretary … had no role in the manner Wilson chose to undertake its investigation’.

Fairfax Media spoke with an Iranian asylum seeker who was transferred from Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre to the detention centre on Christmas Island. The 26-year-old claimed that he was not told why he was transferred, and that he is suffering from significant ‘mental stress and physical pain’. Currently there are approximately 30 asylum seekers being detained on Christmas Island, along with 200 Australian residents facing deportation for serious criminal offences. 

Weekly media wrap - 26 September 2016

At the United Nations Summit for Refugees and Migrants, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull promoted Australia’s border protection policies as a model for other countries. Turnbull argued that the primary concern for domestic asylum policies should be stronger border security. Turnbull’s comments were strongly criticised by detainees on Manus Island, with Iranian refugee and journalist Behrouz Boochani arguing that ‘Australia’s offshore policy is not based on border protection, it is based on torture’. Save the Children CEO Paul Ronalds likewise condemned the comments.

At the subsequent Leaders’ Summit on Refugees hosted by US President Barack Obama, Australia committed to providing an extra $130 million over the next three years ‘to further increase support for refugees and communities in key countries of first asylum’. Turnbull announced that Australia would maintain its humanitarian refugee intake, permanently accepting 18,750 refugees per year by 2018-19, including a percentage from camps in Costa Rica. Turnbull did not address Australia’s offshore processing regime, but Nauru’s President Baron Waqa called on the international community to assist in finding durable resettlement solutions for the more than 900 refugees on the island.

The Australian Human Rights Commission released a report proposing alternatives to Australia’s current asylum-seeker policy. Titled Pathways to Protection: A human rights-based response to the flight of asylum seekers by sea, the report is ‘intended to contribute positively to public debate on alternatives to current third country processing of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru’.

Connect Settlement Services, an agency providing health and education services for refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru, announced that it would not re-apply following the completion of its contract in December.  The company’s decision comes less than a month after Wilson Security announced its withdrawal from Australia’s offshore detention centres, meaning that all major service providers on Nauru are now planning to leave.

Weekly media wrap - 19 September 2016

In a speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on Thursday, Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton stated that Australia will continue to process asylum seekers on Nauru for ‘decades’. In an interview with the al-Jazeera network, he appeared to leave open the possibility of refugees being resettled in New Zealand from Nauru, but clarified that this would be an arrangement between the governments of Nauru and New Zealand.

Gillian Triggs, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, appealed to Malcolm Turnbull to bring asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island to Australia. The AHRC will release a report outlining alternatives to Australia’s current asylum-seeker policy on Wednesday.

Australia’s offshore detention policies were also criticised by Chitralekha Massey, the new Pacific representative of the United Nations Human Rights Office. In an interview with Guardian Australia, Massey urged Australia to adopt a ‘non-custodial’ approach to asylum seeker processing. Despite this and other criticisms, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull maintained that Australia’s border protection policies are ‘the best in the world’.

A report from Unicef and Save the Children found that Australia’s current asylum seeker policy has cost $9.6 billion over the last four years. $3.6 billion has been spent on offshore processing and $5.6 billion on onshore mandatory detention.

Weekly media wrap - 12 September 2016

The Government of Nauru denied Independent parliamentarian Andrew Wilkie a visa to visit the island nation. This follows the recent refusal of entry visas for three Danish MPs and for Senator Hanson-Young earlier in 2016. The Australian Government has stated that the issuing of visas is a matter for Nauruan Government. 

Following a recent visit to Manus Island, the Human Rights Law Centre and Getup launched a new campaign to call for the Australian Government to bring asylum seekers from Manus Island to Australia. The campaign has published statements of several men held in detention on Manus Island, each of whom were interviewed during this recent visit.

In a joint statement, six leading humanitarian organisations criticised the Australian Government for the delays in resettling 12,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees, and advocated for the resettlement of this intake to be completed by March 2017. The Australian Government advised that 3532 people have been resettled and a further 3146 visas have been issued.

UNICEF reported that around 11 million children around the world are refugees and asylum seekers living outside their country of origin, and that this number has doubled in the 10 years from 2005 to 2015. Further, the number of unaccompanied minors applying for asylum tripled from 2014 to 2015.

Weekly media wrap - 5 September 2016

Wilson Security announced that it will end its work in Australia’s offshore detention centres at the end of its contract. Wilson’s decision leaves the government without a security firm for the centres.

The government of Nauru refused entry visas to three of the six Danish MPs who arrived in Australia on Saturday for a long-planned trip to examine Australia’s detention policy, leading the entire party to cancel their trip.  Johanne Schmidt-Nielson, one of the MPs denied entry, claimed that the government of Nauru told the Danish embassy that the party was unable to visit because of critical statements they had made about the offshore policy.

Government adviser Paris Aristotle recommended ending offshore detention in order to prevent further self-harm by detainees. He advocated the resettlement of refugees in countries including Australia as part of a ‘regional system based on established human rights principles’. Aristotle previously sat on the 2012 Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers, which recommended that the Gillard Government reopen offshore detention centres.

Jasmine Pilbrow, a 22 year old Melbourne woman, was found guilty of interfering with a crew member on an aircraft. In February 2015, Pilbrow refused to take her seat on a flight from Melbourne to Darwin, where a Tamil asylum seeker was expected to be deported back to Sri Lanka.

The Victorian State Government announced funding for 3000 people on temporary protection visas to study in areas lacking skilled workers, including hospitality and aged care. Victoria is currently the only state where asylum seekers can access TAFE.

Weekly media wrap - 29 August 2016

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young was denied a visa to visit Nauru, one week after Fairfax Media’s application for a visa to visit the country was also refused. Meanwhile, six members of the Danish Parliament’s Immigration and Integration Affairs Committee have been granted permission to visit Nauru. One of the MPs said that the group is visiting Nauru to “ask some of the questions that the Australian Government is preventing journalists from asking.”

Opposition leader Bill Shorten indicated that Labor is open to resettling refugees from Australia’s offshore detention centres in New Zealand. However, the Coalition government has said that refugees will not be settled in New Zealand because this could create “incentives for people smugglers to get back into business”.

Thousands of protestors took part in seven separate “Close the camps, Bring them here” rallies across Australia to demand the closure of the offshore processing centres on Nauru, and the resettlement of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru in Australia.

An analysis by the Parliamentary Library showed that the offshore processing centre on Manus Island has cost Australia around $2 billion since it reopened four years ago. Immigration minister Peter Dutton announced last week that the centre would eventually close; however, this week Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court heard arguments in a case seeking orders that the centre be closed within 48 hours and that all refugees and asylum seekers be transferred to Australia. A full hearing date for the case is yet to be set.

The Scanlon Foundation in conjunction with Monash University released the 2016 Australians Today report into the state of multiculturalism in Australia. The report found that more than three in four South Sudanese migrants, most of whom arrived as humanitarian refugees, have experienced some form of discrimination. 

Weekly media wrap - 22 August 2016

After a meeting of officials, the Australian and Papua New Guinea governments announced that the Manus Island detention centre will be closed 'as quickly as possible'. Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton reiterated that the asylum seekers currently held there would not be resettled in Australia. The minister stated that third countries for resettlement were being discussed and that the Australian government would provide PNG with extra resources to cope with the transition.

The Nauruan government stated that most claims made in the 'Nauru files' – more than 2000 leaked incident reports from Australia’s offshore detention centre on Nauru – were ‘fabricated’. In two tweets, the government claimed that left wing media and Greens politicians in Australia were using refugees as ‘pawns’ to further their political agendas.

Meanwhile, The Guardian revealed official correspondence showing that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and immigration minister Peter Dutton were extensively briefed on the harmful impacts of prolonged detention on children, including most recently in May 2016.

Over 1800 academics backed a policy paper calling for the end of ‘harmful policies of offshore processing, boat turnbacks and the mandatory detention of people seeking asylum’. The paper recommended to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he hold a summit to consider ways to deal with the 2000 asylum seekers currently held on Nauru and Manus Island. 

Weekly media wrap - 15 August 2016

The Guardian Australia published the ‘Nauru files’ – more than 2,000 leaked incident reports detailing occurrences of violence, including the self harm and sexual abuse of children, at Australia’s offshore immigration detention centre on Nauru. Following the release, Australian human rights groups urged that the allegations contained in the reports be investigated as part of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, and the UNHCR called for all refugees and asylum seekers to be immediately moved from the island. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton responded to the allegations by questioning the integrity of refugees and asylum seekers in offshore facilities, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull opposed calls for a royal commission.

Allegations of abuse were also made by an asylum seeker held at the Manus Island immigration detention centre in Papua New Guinea, strengthening calls for an independent inquiry into human rights abuses at offshore facilities. The allegations come as PNG’s Supreme Court set August 22nd as the date it will decide whether Australia is legally responsible for asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island.

The head of Operation Sovereign Borders Major General Andrew Bottrell said keeping details of asylum seeker boat turnbacks secret from the Australian public was essential for national security. The comments were made during a landmark freedom of information case initiated by Guardian Australia journalist Paul Farrell, seeking access to government orders to executive turnback operations in 2013 and early 2014.

The Australian Government contracted a second refugee resettlement agency to provide services to the sole refugee in Cambodia, resettled from Nauru as part of the Cambodia deal. The ABC reported that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection declined to comment on the reasons for the new arrangement.

Weekly media wrap - 9 August 2016

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International released a report detailing the conditions in Australia’s offshore immigration detention centre on Nauru. Anna Neistat, Senior Director for Research at Amnesty International, called the situation 'cruel in the extreme'.

On Thursday, Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court ordered the PNG and Australian Governments to present a resettlement plan for the 900 asylum seekers on Manus Island. The Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection responded by stating that the Australian government ‘is not a party to the proceedings’.

A medical transfer flight to Port Moresby for a refugee on Nauru with a growing lump in her breast was cancelled. She was due to undergo a biopsy. No reason was given for the flight cancellation.

The embassy of Pakistan in Australia agreed to repatriate the body of Kamil Hussain, the asylum seeker who drowned at a swimming area on Manus Island. Papua New Guinea’s government had previously maintained that Hussain’s body would be buried on Manus, but relented in a meeting on Friday. 

Weekly media wrap - 1 August 2016

David Manne, Executive Director of Refugee Legal, called for the terms of reference for the recently announced Royal Commission into children in detention to be expanded to include “all children deprived of their liberty by the Australian Government”.  

Until last year, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection contracted Save the Children to provide schooling to asylum seekers on Nauru. Since the end of the contract, attendance has dropped from around 90% to below 15%. 

A court case challenging the legality of the refugee resettlement program in PNG has been adjourned until 2 August as government lawyers consider statements made by refugees in court. 

In Germany, a 27-year-old Syrian man whose asylum claim had been rejected detonated a bomb after being turned away from a music festival, injuring 15 people. Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her Government’s policy to providing shelter to those who need it. German leaders are fearful that the radical right will use the fourth violent attack in a week to spearhead a backlash among voters.