BREAKING: Senate Votes To Remove All Kids From Immigration Detention In Australia By Christmas
Australians all let us rejoice! The Australian senate has proposed a landmark bill that calls to release all children from Australian based detention centres by Christmas this year. Today it gained the support of the Greens, Labor and crossbenchers.
#BREAKINGGREAT NEWS (Note all of the following still has to pass the House of Representatives to be law so now up to…
Posted by Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) on Sunday, 22 November 2015
If the bill can move past the house of representatives, it will be a huge victory for families seeking asylum and refugee campaigners around the world who’ve critisised Australia’s long history of inhumane detention policies.
A few obvious conditions have been proposed for the centres going forward, including workers being forced to report any child abuse. The changes also clarify that detention workers, like doctors, can reveal details about what goes on inside the centres without fear of prosecution. Yes, this is how bad things currently are.
Unfortunately, the changes wouldn’t apply to offshore detention centres including Nauru, where pretty much anything shitty can still happen. It’s also been recommended that the Minister for Immigration would have to consider the public interest when releasing anyone from detention and could not give a tick for relocation in the event of an adverse security ruling.
The timing comes as UN Chief Ban Ki Moon challenged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over Australia’s hard-line border protection policies at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur.
The Secretary-General said he “expressed concern over the detention conditions in Australia’s offshore processing centres” on Nauru and Papua New Guinea‘s Manus Island and encouraged Turnbull to “reconsider” Operation Sovereign Borders, the military inspired and led program to turn around asylum seeker boats.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said it was about time children were released from detention.
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