Aussie Government criticised for locking children in centres

Transcript

The Australian Government has been criticised for its policy of detaining women and children in offshore detention centres with substandard medical care.

The government statistics say that children are now being locked up at greater rates than adults.

It has claimed victory in stopping the boats, but critics say the policy of offshore detention is costly and most applicants are found to be refugees.

Alex Perrottet reports.

As at May the 31st, 23 per cent of children in the system were locked up in centres, while the proportion of adults locked up was 18 per cent. The CEO of the Refugee Council of Australia, Paul Power, says it is ironic that successive governments have broken ground in finding alternatives to detention, but the average time people are detained has tripled in the last eight months.

PAUL POWER: The Government certainly has had lots of time to release children from locked detention because there have been no boat arrivals since December last year. So of those children who are in locked facilities, they all would have been detained for at least seven months and quite possibly longer in quite a number of cases.

Paul Power says the Minister of Immigration, Scott Morrison, is being needlessly negative about asylum seekers, without mentioning that the vast majority are either living in community detention or are on bridging visas.

Mr Morrison claimed victory in June, saying after six months in government, there were no successful people-smuggling ventures. He also said the Government has allocated $2.6 million for full time education services at Christmas Island, held at the Phosphate Hill Alternative Place of Detention.

But asylum seekers say it's the phosphate that is making their children sick, and some have requested to move as soon as possible to Nauru. The spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul, says they were told they are likely to go to Nauru, but they might not appreciate that there's undoubtedly more phosphate there.

IAN RINTOUL: People are very very distressed to feel that their powers to help their children, they're desperate to get proper medical attention and they believe they need to get away from Christmas Island so that they can get proper medical attention and their kids can get better.

But the spokesperson for Amnesty International Australia, Graeme McGregor, says on Nauru there's only one pediatrician and no life-support facility for children.

GRAEME McGREGOR: There's absolutely no excuse for holding this children in detention, now beyond that we have serious concerns about the conditions that children in detention are being exposed to, apart from the very clear mental health impacts of that detention. We're hearing very disturbing reports leaking out from offshore detention centres about serious lack of health care for children.

Paul Power says even on cost, the policy can't be justified, as offshore detention costs more than $400,000 per person per year in detention, while detention in Australia cost $239,000.

PAUL POWER: And there is no obvious reasons for doing that particularly when the majority of asylum seekers have come by boat who are within Australia are actually living in the community in either  community detention or on bridging visas. You know a lot of it is about politics and about the way in which the issue is perceived by elements of the Australian population.

The Department of Immigration did not respond to requests for comment.

In January, the then regional United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Richard Towle said it's not appropriate for families and children to be transferred to Nauru or Papua New Guinea.