The Australian Immigration Department, following direction from government, manages these camps using various contracted providers. There is evidence of the physical and mental health risks for those interned in both the offshore and onshore detention centres but, whenever concerns have been reported, the government has moved to attack the messengers, labelling them as whistle blowers to distract from the actual issues being raised.
In some instances, those messengers have been medical professionals speaking about the high levels of mental health problems and the neglect of basic human rights. They have been clear in their concerns regarding children in detention, despite attempts to silence criticism with confidentiality legislation, whose existence only highlights the desperate actions of politicians and government departments who know they are wrong.
The recent release of the Forgotten Children report by the Australian Human Rights Commission on asylum seekers' children held in detention was hit with an attack on its author. The government didn't like the content of the report and the commissioner was told she should resign and take the offer to step sideways into another job.
She did not take this pressure lightly, refusing to bow before a government that doesn't like being faced with uncomfortable truths.
Doctors contracted by the government to provide medical services to asylum seekers in camps on Christmas Island have spoken out against the conditions and the systematic neglect there. They felt the Immigration Department was over-riding medical advice, compelling them to work in contradiction of their professional and ethical duties.
They spoke about the level of self-harm as one measure of the effect that conditions were having on those in detentions camps. Between January 2013 and March 2014, there were 128 recorded incidents of self-harm involving children - this being 62 per cent of the total actual self-harm incidents. Fifteen women had been placed on self-harm or suicide watch at the Christmas Island detention facility.
Tony Abbott responded by saying that self-harming was an "attempt to hold the government to ransom".
Now he is saying that abuse and violence to children in immigration detention is something "that happens". New Zealand should guard its international reputation and pull its troops out of the arrangement with the Australia government in case they get caught up in some other morally suspect situation where "things happen".
- Terry Sarten is a writer, social worker and musician - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz
