Once the works at Curtin and Broadmeadows are complete I would envisage that this site would no long be necessary for these requirements. Six weeks after denying that asylum seekers would be accommodated at an air force base near Weipa, the Federal Government has finally admitted they will. But only weeks ago, and on the eve of the federal election, the Government denied asylum seekers would be housed at the site after The Weekend Post visited Weipa to investigate claims that the base was secretly being upgraded.
A number of accommodation blocks had been delivered to the site and a professional pig-hunter at the base had his contract revoked. When The Weekend Post visited Weipa last month, a fencing contractor at the base refused to answer any questions. Scherger air force Base to be converted into immigration detention centre , Lauren Wilson, Australian, September 17, It will house asylum-seekers only until they can be sent to more permanent locations, said Mr Bowen, who was sworn in as Immigration Minister on Tuesday.
In a significant boost to onshore detention capacity, the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation will also be expanded to house families and children in the short to medium term and the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre in Western Australia will also be expanded. No explanation has been offered and yesterday the Government denied it was in the process of upgrading the facility.
A number of accommodation blocks, have also been delivered to the based and a pig hunter contracted to cull pigs on site recently had his work revoked. Topics: immigration , weipa If you have inside knowledge of a topic in the news, contact the ABC.
ABC teams share the story behind the story and insights into the making of digital, TV and radio content. Read about our editorial guiding principles and the standards ABC journalists and content makers follow. Learn more. The assaults continued.
But it was not until October — almost a year after these early assaults were documented — that a review into allegations of assaults on Nauru was undertaken to examine the broader institutional responses. These two assaults, early on in the tenure of the Abbott government, should have put the immigration department on notice that there was something very wrong happening in these remote detention centres. But no action was taken to examine the systemic issues surrounding sexual violence in detention centres on Manus Island, Nauru and the mainland until much later.
Evidence gathered by Guardian Australia highlights the systemic failures in how the immigration department and contractors have responded to serious allegations. Clinical advice by those who know best about responding to sexual assaults — doctors and psychiatrists — has been ignored. In one case, the immigration department even delayed allowing the medical contractor to report a serious allegation of sexual assault.
Clear child protection policies were not implemented on Nauru. And serious assaults continue to occur. A Senate inquiry is under way into some of these allegations at the Nauru detention centre.
The secretary of the immigration department told Senate estimates the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse is drafting notices to produce documents for incidents relating to mainland detention centres. Guardian Australia has asked both the immigration minister, Peter Dutton , and the secretary of the department, Michael Pezzullo, to respond to the allegations in an interview, but both men declined. Jamal arrived on Manus Island in early October He claimed shortly after his arrival that he was an unaccompanied minor.
In November Jamal expressed serious concerns to the detention centre staff. He stated there is a lot of talk within the compound about sexual activity. In Australia a threat of a gang rape — particularly by such a young person — would routinely warrant scrutiny and attract the attention of police. For those working with children, there would often also be a statutory obligation on them to report the issue to a child protection authority.
In immigration detention centres the rules are different. No police report was filed initially. The Salvation Army said Jamal would be moved to another part of the compound.
International health and medical services IHMS planned to see him the next day, but added he did not have any signs of physical abuse. The corrective strategy is to place him in a less risky situation.
A December note, after Jamal was moved to the Delta compound, flags in bold red that he is extremely vulnerable. Moving an asylum seeker to a different centre is the most common response to allegations of sexual assault in offshore detention centres.
Successive meeting minutes from Manus Island show a clear pattern of this sort of response, beginning while the Labor government was in power. On 13 March an asylum seeker was believed to be the victim of a sexual assault by staff, and he feared going to the toilets. On 1 May another asylum seeker said he felt unsafe at the toilets after his friend was threatened with rape by other asylum seekers.
On 6 June another asylum seeker said he had been inappropriately touched in the toilets.
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