Senator McKIERNAN (4:14 PM) —On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, I present a report of the committee entitled Not the Hilton: immigration detention centres—inspection report.

Ordered that the report be printed.

Senator McKIERNAN —I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

Senator McKIERNAN —I move:

I seek leave to have the tabling statement incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

Senator McKIERNAN —The report that we have just tabled in this place, which was earlier tabled in the other place, is a very useful and pertinent report but, regrettably, it is somewhat dated. The inspections occurred in November last year at the detention centres located in Perth, Port Hedland, Curtin, Willie Creek and Darwin. That was some nine months ago. The inspections at Woomera, Villawood and Maribyrnong occurred over six months ago, in January and February of this year. The effluxion of time has dated the content of the report, but events that have occurred have also dated the content of the report. I do not say this in a critical sense. I am a member of the committee, and I endorse the content of the report and the recommendations contained in it. Nonetheless, it is a factor that a number of events have occurred since the committee collected its evidence to put into the report which have, regrettably and unfortunately, dated it prior to its presentation in this place.

I refer particularly to events such as the break-outs and escapes that occurred in June this year from Woomera, from Port Hedland and from Curtin. All of those escapes and break-outs were contained at the time—although the Woomera break-out went on for some days, with quite a deal of media attention attracted to it. The break-outs that occurred in my home state of Western Australia, at Curtin and at Port Hedland, were contained a lot earlier than the events at Woomera. I figure the location of the centres contributed to this. There was some concern about the break-out from Port Hedland, but one can only commend the authorities in Port Hedland—the persons in charge of security at the detention centre, ACM, and the local police force—and the others involved in containing it. The detention centre is in a residential centre of Port Hedland, and all of the individuals who escaped from detention were contained and were brought back into detention in quite a short period of time. Similarly, at Curtin—although it is a more remote and isolated area—the escapees were returned to detention in a very short period of time. Some injuries occurred during those break-outs, which is a matter of great regret.

Another event that has occurred since the collecting of information for the committee's report is the presentation of a report from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission—that is, their report No. 10, Report of an inquiry into complaints of acts or practices inconsistent with or contrary to human rights in an immigration detention centre. I spoke about this matter in this place on Thursday of last week, and I refer persons to that speech. I want to raise the issue of the riots that occurred two weeks ago at the Woomera Detention Centre—riots and happenings that I had hoped we would never see in Australia. We have seen that the authorities used water cannon, and we have heard reports that tear gas was also used to contain the detainees. We have also seen graphic pictures on our television screens of smoke billowing from the detention centre at Woomera, with a number of buildings in that facility being destroyed by a fire which, we are told, was wilfully lit.

There have been many suggestions as to the reasons for the events that occurred at Woomera two weeks ago. I am not one of those who will conjecture about it because, quite frankly, I do not know who the persons were who were involved in the riots. A number of people have been taken into further detention—brought to Adelaide and held there—and have been charged with crimes associated with the events that we have seen so graphically portrayed in our media. I do not know who the individuals were, although we are told by the minister that the main instigators of the riot were people who had failed in their application for refugee status in this country and, because of that, they were frustrated, and they were taking their frustration out on the facilities at the Woomera range. I do not know that for a fact. Others have suggested that it was because of the lengthy periods of detention that the individuals were subjected to and the lengthy periods of time it took to process their applications. Again, I do not know whether this is true.

If ever there were a need for an inquiry into happenings in detention centres in Australia, that was the catalyst for it at Woomera some two weeks ago. There should have been an independent inquiry into what occurred at Woomera. From my point of view, Woomera is the least attractive of any of the detention centres the committee visited—not that any of the detention centres are particularly attractive; nor, perhaps, should they be. As I have said in this place previously, I stayed in the facility at Port Hedland before it became a detention centre—when it was used as single men's quarters for the Mount Newman Mining Co. some years ago. It has been a detention centre for a number of years now. There are a number of repercussions from what occurred at Woomera last week—and, indeed, from the earlier break-outs. They can be, in part, summed up by an editorial that appeared in the West Australian on Monday, 12 June 2000. This editorial was in relation to the break-outs that occurred locally, but it is also pertinent to the riots that occurred at Woomera. One paragraph from the editorial states:

That latter part needs to be reflected upon by the detainees themselves and, more importantly, by their supporters outside in the community. After all, if people are going to suffer and be convicted as a result of the events in Woomera last week, it will be the individuals inside. It will not be the likes of Ian Rintoul, a spokesman for the Refugee Action Collective, who was quoted in the Australian Associated Press statement of Friday 1 September. Mr Rintoul is quoted as saying:

I do not know how Mr Rintoul gets the information he is able to quote in that fashion. I think it is very unfortunate that an individual such as this is giving support to a continuation of rioting—rioting which damages Australian property. The damage that occurred was to items Australian taxpayers paid for, and the cost of it is said to be in the region of $1 million. It has also deprived many of the other detainees in that centre of the facilities that they want to enjoy: the mess hall for eating in, the schools where the children went for their education and other facilities in the place. By going on the rampage that they did, they were actually damaging their fellow detainees, including the children. As I understand it, the building that is used for the schools was also damaged.

Another individual quoted in the same statement said that the detention centres were like Nazi camps. The individual who made that remark has never seen a Nazi camp. I have, and I have seen all of the centres in Australia. There is no comparison between the conditions of Australian detention facilities and what were Nazi detention centres in the other part of the world. I hope that there will be a full and detailed inquiry into the events of Woomera and that the truth will out. (Time expired)

Question resolved in the affirmative.