This week Morrison said he does not consider racism to be a major issue in Australia. I don't think he read the 2021 Human Rights Watch report on the ongoing abuses of First Nations people or the piece from the Australian Museum on the ongoing Genocide in Australia. #Auspol
Australia appeared before the UN Human Rights Council for its Universal Periodic Review in Geneva on January 20, 2021. The UN review made it clear that the Australian government hasn’t followed through on some of its key past pledges to the UN Human Rights Council. 1/11
“UN member countries rightly criticized Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and questioned why incarceration rates of First Nations peoples remain so high,” said Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. 2/11
Australia informed this review that it had carried out in full or in part 183 out of 290 recommendations from its 2015 review.
However, more than 40 nations questioned Australia’s policies toward asylum seekers and refugees, from Brazil to Germany, South Korea to the US. 3/11
Scott Morrison is not my hero. My heroes are the refugees that’ve been detained by the Australian Government for up to eight years. The world’s most vulnerable people are not even welcome to step on Australian soil. Instead, indefinite detention for no crime. #GameOver#Auspol
2021 Human Right Watch: Australian Children. Incarceration disproportionately affects Indigenous children: they are 21 times more likely to be detained than non-Indigenous children. Across Australia, about 600 children under the age of 14 are imprisoned each year. 1/5
State and territory attorney generals had the opportunity to increase the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years, the recommended international minimum, after a major public campaign ahead of their annual summit, but they declined. 2/5
In August, the ACT parliament committed to introducing their own legislation to raise the age of criminal responsibility. A landmark report by the South Australian Guardian for Children and Young People revealed disturbing treatment inside Adelaide's Youth Detention Centre. 3/5
2021 Human Rights Watch: Australia. Indigenous Australians are significantly over-represented in the criminal justice system, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprising 29% of Australia’s adult prison population, but just 3% of the national population. 1/8
There were at least seven Indigenous deaths in custody in Australia in 2020 - four in Western Australian prisons, two in Victoria, and one in a Brisbane police watch house. 2/8
In April, a Victorian coroner found the 2017 death of Aboriginal woman Tanya Day "clearly preventable” and that "unconscious bias" was a factor in her being reported to police and arrested. 3/8
2021 Human Right Watch: Australia. 2020 marked seven years since the Australia government introduced offshore processing of asylum seekers. Approximately 290 refugees and asylum seekers remained in Papua New Guinea and Nauru at time of writing. 1/5
Of those remaining offshore most have been there since 2013. Australia has rejected offers by New Zealand to take some of the refugees, with the government arguing that accepting the offer would encourage more boat arrivals as New Zealand is a “backdoor route” to Australia. 2/5
At least 12 refugees and asylum seekers have died in Australia’s offshore processing system since 2013, six of them suicides. More than 1,200 transferred to Australia from Papua New Guinea and Nauru for medical or other reasons remain in limbo, with no permanent visas. 3/5
Australia has a long history of providing new homes to some of the world’s most persecuted and vulnerable people. However, these achievements — of which Australians can be rightly proud — continue to be overshadowed by our current treatment of people seeking asylum. 1/12
The 2013 and 2017 Snapshot Reports reveal a significant gap between Australia’s human rights obligations under international law and its treatment of refugees and people seeking asylum, particularly those who arrive by boat. 2/12
The overall policy settings for people who arrive in Australia by boat remain. Australia maintains a policy of mandatory immigration detention for unlawful non-citizens, regardless of whether they pose a risk to the community. 3/12