Thuggish border laws antithesis of an open, liberal democracy
Greg Barns rails against Australia’s new secrecy laws
AUSTRALIAN law over the past decade has been heading inexorably in the direction of a major increase in the power of the state at the expense of human rights.
The Australian Border Force Act, a federal law which came into force July 1, is a troubling example. It makes it a criminal offence for those working in Australia’s notorious immigration detention centres to disclose to the media wrongdoing or physical or mental abuse of asylum seekers.
The law is typical of the thuggish Abbott Government, but it was supported enthusiastically by the ALP and all cross-benchers, except for the Greens. This Act is nothing short of a militarising of the Australian Customs Service and the Department of Immigration and Border Control. It is the mutant progeny of the obsession both the Coalition parties and the ALP have with trying to stop individuals seeking safety from a wealthy nation that ought to be generous.
Section 42 of the Act is disturbing in its heading alone. It is entitled “Secrecy”. It provides that someone who is an “entrusted person” commits an offence if he or she records, or discloses what is termed “protected information”. An entrusted person is defined in the Act to mean not only government employees, but also consultants and contractors. “Protected information” means any information that a person comes across while working for, or in, detention centres. A breach of section 42 is punishable by imprisonment of up to two years.
Any person working directly or indirectly for the Australian Government who reveals to the media or any other person or organisation (the only exceptions being the Immigration Department and other Commonwealth agencies, police, coroners) anything that happens in detention centres like Nauru and Manus Island is liable to prosecution.
This extraordinary provision has been inserted by the Abbott Government because over a number of years revelations in the media, by NGOs and medical groups, of sexual and other forms of physical and mental abuse of asylum seekers in the care of the Government have brought international condemnation.
Only two months ago a group of doctors, counsellors and teachers who had worked at Nauru wrote an open letter outlining sexual and other forms of abuse endured by asylum seekers.
The World Medical Association and Australian medical bodies’ concern about this chilling law have been dismissed by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Mr Dutton points to a provision in the legislation which provides that doctors and other health professionals are exempt from the ban on disclosure if the purpose is to save a life or to prevent endangerment to a person’s health.
Mr Dutton’s ignorance, and as it turns out untrue opinion, is backed by Labor spokesman Richard Marles. This provision will not cover a situation where a doctor writes an article for a medical journal
about systemic mental health problems in asylum seekers.
And, as The Guardian revealed last Monday in an email from the head of Save the Children on Nauru, an NGO, to his staff warned them not to talk about the closure of a school on this benighted island because it is a criminal offence under the Border Force Act to do so.
Other provisions of the Act can be characterised as designed to prevent dissent and criticism. Section 26 allows the Australian Border Force Commissioner to direct people who work for the department including contractors, and people who work for foreign governments or for public international organisations such as Save the Children or the Red Cross.
This will inhibit contractors from abiding by professional obligations or from following generally accepted ethical standards required to fulfil their roles. The Commissioner could, for example, direct Red Cross workers to show him or her any report they have written for their organisation about detention centres.
Workers may need to undergo “Organisational Suitability Assessments” as part of their essential qualifications. The Explanatory Memorandum that accompanied the legislation contemplates that this will screen individuals who may be less likely to comply with secrecy and nondisclosure requirements.
These provisions will deter doctors, counsellors, and others who have voiced concern about the appalling conditions endured by asylum seekers in detention centres from collecting information about those conditions.
The effect of the Act is to throw a veil of secrecy over what is happening.
This legislation is antithetical to a society that professes to be a liberal democracy with independent scrutiny, and protection for those who lift the veil on human rights abuse.