The Palmer Report

To read the whole report will take most of us a little while. Get it here

If you can wade through it and would like to comment please send your comments to RAC(Vic) at refugeeaction@hotmail.com

In the meantime we are grateful to Kon Karapanagiotidis of the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre for being able to immediately put out this media release below.

The Palmer Report fails to back up its’ damning findings of DIMIA (www.minister.immi.gov.au/) with recommendations that will guarantee an end to the mistreatment of asylum seekers in Australia’s detention centers’ according to Kon Karapanagiotidis, Co-ordinator of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC).

The ASRC is deeply concerned that the Palmer report will allow DIMIA to simply make cosmetic changes and avoid the complete overhaul that is required of our immigration system. DIMIA has already started embarking on an exercise of simply moving the deck chairs at a management level to create the impression of change (see press release of Peter Shergold, DIMIA Secretary http://www.pmc.gov.au/speeches/shergold/dimia_2005-07-14.cfm) rather than look to overhaul and change a detention system and culture that is unworkable, unjust and inherently harmful to asylum seekers.

This week alone we see that when it comes to the mental health of asylum seekers in detention nothing has changed. We have three men in Baxter IDC unable to get transferred to a hospital for urgently needed psychiatric care, and the ASRC continues to receive numerous calls from long-term detainees throughout Australia each week complaining about the lack of medical and psychiatric care they are receiving in detention.

The Palmer Report clearly demonstrates that DIMIA and GSL cannot be entrusted with ensuring the care and well-being of asylum seekers in detention and in upholding their human rights. Clearly the message that needs to be taken from the findings of the Palmer report is that mandatory detention is unworkable and inherently harmful to asylum seekers' mental and physical health; that DIMIA cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of detainees, or meet their duty of care to them, and therefore all asylum seekers in detention must be released into community care as a matter of urgency to prevent any further suffering and harm to asylum seekers.

Why the Palmer Report recommendations don’t go far enough:

1. It fails to call for a genuine complete overhaul of the entire Department of Immigration that is so urgently needed despite finding a culture that ‘ignores criticism, is unduly defensive and unwilling to question itself’.

2. It continues to vest all power with DIMIA when it comes to the management and treatment of asylum seekers despite Palmer finding that they have consistently misused and abused this power to the dire detriment of asylum seekers.

3. Palmer does not recommend the establishment of any independent body with the power to actually hold DIMIA accountable and compel them to adhere to their responsibilities and duty of care to detainees. There is no legally enforceable mechanisms put forward to help bring an end to this inherently flawed and unjust system. DIMIA at the end of the day are left to still police themselves.

4. It provides no durable or real solutions to deal with the fact that detention is inherently harmful to the physical and mental health of asylum seekers. Palmer ignores entirely the fact that alternatives to detention exist in the community and refuses to even consider their appropriateness (Recommendation 4.12). Nor does Palmer examine the impact of detention on detainees well-being and reflect on and question the appropriateness of mandatory detention.

5. Furthermore, Palmer fails to address the pervasive culture of indifference and neglect towards the health of asylum seekers in our detention centers. He offers further training and better communication systems of DIMIA and GSL as a key solution rather than a need for legally enforceable mechanisms to ensure that asylum seekers get the medical care they need.

6. Palmer’s recommendations of the establishment of a Health Advisory Panel don’t go far enough, with no power to have their recommendations enforced. What real value will they have? (Recommendation 6.10)

7. Palmer recommends the establishment of an Immigration Detention Health Review Commission (Recommendation 6.11) to carry out external reviews of health and medical services provided to asylum seekers and their welfare but does not recommend they have the power to compel DIMIA to provide medical care needed in the fashion need, or to compel DIMIA where they deem appropriate to have a detainee released from detention because they cannot be properly cared for.

8. Palmer provides no benchmark or minimal standards to ensure adequate medical care is provided to detainees in regards to their mental and physical health needs. In recommendations 6.9 and 6.10, Palmer recommends access to better health services and better reporting systems,

9. Palmer ignores the fact that the dominant culture of DIMIA continues to be to ignore, in the majority of cases, the medical findings and recommendations of specialists and hospitals, so better reporting systems will deliver no real outcomes for asylum seekers. In failing to recommend that State mental health services be in control of the mental health care and treatment of detainees they leave detainees' care in the hands of a Department of Immigration that has no commitment to their proper care and treatment.

10. Palmer allows DIMIA Management to get off the hook, despite finding them to be responsible, in his words, for ‘failed practices, poor decisions and regrettable outcomes’ and who do not have the ‘credibility and objectivity to bring about the fundamental change of mindset that is necessary’. Palmer does not question their ability to continue in those roles and does not call for the removal of any senior DIMIA officials. No-one is held accountable for what has happened. The buck stops nowhere.

11. The last three reports from the Auditor General have come up with the criticism that there is no auditing processes or accountability in DIMIA, and Palmer simply mirrors this and goes no further in terms of demanding real legislative changes. When these other three reports have gone to Parliament they have not been noted by the government and no changes made.

12. It offers nothing to asylum seekers in detention centers that will guarantee improvements in their rights, care or treatment. In Recommendation 4.3 on improving the detention environment Palmer entirely misses the point. Instead of recommending real changes to an environment that is inherently harmful to the well-being of asylum seekers and based on a denial of their most basic human rights, all Palmer offers detainees are meaningless and trivia rights such as: having better explained why they are being held in detention and the duty o f care that the government has to them. The problems lie in the system itself not in additional trivial matters such as ‘establishing a process for determining a list of topics for discussions one week before each consultation forum is to be held’ nor in detainees being consulted about what food they will be eating in detention (Recommendation 4.6) or in detainees earning the ‘privilege’ to participate in monthly outings (Recommendation 4.8).

13. Palmer in recommendation 8.3 on how to deal with the removal and deportation of detainees fails to recommend any safeguards to ensure that mentally ill or seriously physical ill detainees are not deported. Palmer provides no requirement for a human rights audit to ensure that the person is genuinely fit to travel, fails to address the fact that DIMIA continues to have no requirement to address the mental fitness of a person to be removed and provides no requirement for an assessment of whether the detainee is in any danger on return.

14. It finds a deeply flawed, unworkable and failed relationship between DIMIA and GSL that has lead to the neglect and mistreatment of asylum seekers and yet fails to recommend an end to this relationship and an end to private operators running detention centers (recommendation 4.2)

15. It fails to call for any genuine independent safeguards and systems that will protect the rights of asylum seekers. For example Recommendation 4.5 recommends that detainees be able to regularly be provided with feedback on questions and issues they have raised by DIMIA and GSL. What will happen to this questions and issues? How will detainees actually get an assurance that they will be dealt with? Who will ensure that they are followed up and addressed?

16. It leaves the prevailing DIMIA culture that has perpetuated this system of abuse and neglect intact by not demanding serious structural changes to bring an end to it.

17. It relies on DIMIA acting on good faith and good will to deliver a more humane system rather than the legislative changes needed to ensure they are accountable and follow the law

18. Palmer addresses the issue of DIMIA Compliance officers seriously misusing their powers by simply demanding better training rather than seeking an overhaul of the entire Compliance department (Recommendation 3.1)

For further comment contact:
Kon Karapanagiotidis
Co – ordinator
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Ph: (03) 9326 6066
www.asrc.org.au