Australia continued to violate the rights of Indigenous Peoples, stripping essential
services from Aboriginal homelands. Refugee policy favoured deterrence, with mandatory,
indefinite and remote detention for asylum-seekers arriving by boat.
The government continued to limit funding for housing and municipal services such
as water and sanitation to Aboriginal peoples living on traditional homelands in the
Northern Territory. As a result, people were effectively forced to abandon their traditional
homelands to access essential services.
An expert panel on the constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians was due
to provide recommendations to the Federal Parliament by December.
Justice system
Indigenous Peoples, while accounting for roughly 2.5 per cent of Australia’s population,
comprised 26 per cent of the adult prison population. Half of all juveniles in detention
were Aboriginal. A parliamentary committee report on Aboriginal youth and justice
published in June showed a jump of 66 per cent in Aboriginal imprisonment rates between
2000 and 2009.
In September and October, security firm employees were fined for failing to prevent
the death of Aboriginal elder Mr Ward, who collapsed from heatstroke in a prison van
in 2008.
In July, the Australian and Malaysian governments agreed to swap 800 asylum-seekers
who arrived by boat in Australia with 4,000 refugees (predominantly from Myanmar)
who were in Malaysia awaiting resettlement.
42 asylum-seekers (predominantly Afghans), including six unaccompanied boys, challenged
their removal to Malaysia. In a landmark decision, the High Court ruled in August
that the swap was invalid under Australia’s Migration Act. The Act prohibits Australia
from deporting asylum-seekers to countries that do not have sufficient legal guarantees
for refugee protection (see Malaysia entry).
As of November 5,733 people were in immigration detention, including 441 children.
Thirty-eight per cent of the 5,733 had been detained for over 12 months. Increasing
rates of suicide and self-harm, including by children as young as nine, were reported
in nearly all detention centres. In July, the Commonwealth Ombudsman launched an investigation;
the findings remained pending.
In September, the government introduced Complementary Protection laws that strengthened
protection for people fleeing abuses – such as female genital mutilation, honour killings
and the death penalty – which are not covered by the UN Refugee Convention.
In January, Australia’s human rights record was assessed for the first time under
the UN Universal Periodic Review. Australia agreed to ratify the Optional Protocol
to the UN Convention against Torture and to consider ratifying ILO No. 169 Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples Convention. However, it rejected: introducing a Human Rights Act;
ending mandatory detention of asylum-seekers; allowing same-sex marriage; and compensating
Indigenous People who were forcibly removed from their families when they were children.
