HON ALISON XAMON (North Metropolitan) [6.04 pm]: Indeed, it has been a huge week for all of us in this chamber, which reflects what is happening in the community with the impact of COVID-19, as we try to unpick the response to it and the long-term implications. Yesterday, we debated a motion in this chamber with which everyone agreed. We talked about the various areas within the community that we have concerns about in terms of the impact of COVID-19, what is happening, and the various strategies being adopted by both the federal and state governments to try to address the many different ways in which parts of our community are being impacted. One thing that has been made very clear is that everyone is being affected.
The other thing that has been made clear is that we do not have the luxury of access to health care being business as usual. We now have a situation in which anyone who gets COVID-19 will potentially put other people at risk. That means that it cannot be business as usual in the way in which we deal with issues of crowding and access to health care. Yesterday, I ran out of time to talk about the sheer breadth of issues that I am concerned about and am actually addressing in relation to COVID-19, but I did make quick reference to what is happening with refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. I want to elaborate on that a bit more. I am talking about people within the Australian community who are inherently at risk. I think we need to be very concerned that we ensure that their lives are also valued. We also need to recognise that if we choose to deny them appropriate health care and other measures to be able to manage the risk of COVID-19, it will put everyone at risk. We know that many refugees and asylum seekers in Australia have lost their jobs, along with other Australians. The difference is that many of them are not able to access the sort of income support that Australian residents and citizens are able to access. That is putting a lot of people on a direct crash course with starvation, frankly. No money is coming in. This is something that we should be deeply concerned about. It is also a problem that far too often asylum seekers and refugees cannot access the same level of health services as the rest of us. The situation now, more than ever, really demonstrates how important it is that every single human in Australia should be able to access appropriate health care. If certain people are simply not able to fully access our health system, that will put everybody at risk. Now is the time to focus on our common humanity, as humans with bodies, and make sure that we look out for absolutely everybody. I am conscious that we are talking about people who are often away from all of their family and friends, who would be in their countries of origin. These people often had no choice but to flee their country of origin and they are now very alone. As I said, a lot of them are now without jobs and very concerned about having appropriate access to health care.
I also want to speak specifically about refugees and asylum seekers who are being kept in our various detention centres. We know that many of them, if not the majority, are not any sort of risk to the community. They are just people who effectively are in a legal holding pattern while they try to have their claims for asylum resolved. They are often families with children and they are inherently at risk of COVID-19. It is the same sort of risk that I am concerned Western Australian prisoners and detainees face, because they are kept in detention facilities and have poor access to health care. This is happening in Western Australia. We have the Perth Immigration Detention Centre and the Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre out in Northam. I am very concerned about what will happen with those refugees and asylum seekers who are currently detained. I am not the only one with these concerns.
I want to draw members’ attention to a letter that was written recently by 1 249 healthcare professionals to Hon Peter Dutton, Hon Alan Tudge and Hon Jason Wood about this matter. I am going to read out this letter so that it is recorded in Hansard and then I will table it for the interest of the Parliament. It states —
Dear Ministers and Assistant Minister,
Re: Australian healthcare professionals call for release of people seeking asylum and refugees from detention
We, the undersigned (1,249) health care professionals, call on the Australian government to release all people seeking asylum and refugees from detention immediately.
Conditions in the detention centres, and even more so, in the hotels being used as Alternate Places of Detention, constitute a very high-risk environment for detainees’ mental and physical health.
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers who were transferred from Manus and Nauru for medical treatment are still being held in closed detention, many without the medical treatment they need.
They now face the risk of COVID-19 infection. Transmission of COVID-19 in institutions is a significant risk. Detainees are held in relatively crowded conditions, made worse by communal meal and activity arrangements in the hotels and detention centres.
An employee guarding people seeking asylum and refugees detained in a Brisbane apartment block has tested positive to the novel coronavirus. Detention conditions in Australia would likely lead to rapid spread, posing a risk to guards and thence to the rest of the Australian community.
At the Mantra Hotel in Preston, an already high-risk environment is compounded by the fact that the hotel is used by airline crews, with personnel constantly coming and going from the hotel. This poses dual risks of infected detainees infecting the airline crew or detainees being infected by the airline crew.
Failure to take action to release people seeking asylum and refugees from detention will not only put them at greater risk of infection (and possibly death), it also risks placing a greater burden on wider Australian society and the health care system.
Not only should detainees be released, we call for the resources of IHMS to be put at the disposal of the government to help provide the health services needed in the wider community to bring COVID-19 under control.
We call for the release of people seeking asylum and refugees in detention immediately into the community, as the correct measure to take from both a humanitarian and public health perspective.
Yours sincerely
The letter goes on to list the 1 249 health professionals.
I seek to table this letter. Leave granted. [See paper 3779. - Clinical Professor in Paediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Sydney to Minister for Home Affairs and Assistant Ministers regarding Australian healthcare professionals call for release of people seeking asylum and refugees from detention (24 March 2020)]
Hon ALISON XAMON: We need to be very much aware of this issue. I am fully aware that this is a federal government decision but we have refugees and asylum seekers in detention centres here in Western Australia now. This poses a significant risk for not only the Australian community, but also them. It is an area that we need to be aware of. There are so many areas of risk and I am very concerned about what will happen in these facilities. I wanted to say those few words because I feel that these are the forgotten humans within Australia. It is important that we remember that every life is important.