13 years of cruelty: Time to end offshore detention

13 years of cruelty: Time to end offshore detention

“These expensive human rights abuses must end.” – Elijah Buol OAM, CEO of the Asylum Seekers Centre

Today marks 13 long years of Australia’s cruel, inhumane offshore detention regime.

The policy has caused, and continues to cause, irreparable harm to thousands of people seeking safety. It must be stopped.

On 19 July 2013, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced: “From now on, any asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as refugees.” 

Thousands of people were then sent to detention camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, where successive Australian governments oversaw a score of human rights abuses, including extreme levels of violence and trauma, sexual assault, lack of medical treatment, family separation, and the deaths of at least 14 people.

ASC staff Fatima Rahmati explains the history of offshore detention

The human cost: a legacy of trauma

Refugee and ASC community member Anna* is a survivor of this brutal regime, having spent more than six years detained on Nauru. 

She lived in overcrowded vinyl tents in extreme heat, with little privacy, food shortages and limited access to basic services. She witnessed self-harm and suicide attempts that continue to affect her mental health.

“If I remember everything, I am too stressed. I cannot sleep. Everything I remember from Nauru, I remember.

“Now if I remember, I cry too much.”

This long-lasting trauma is not an accident of the system; it is a direct result of policies designed to choose bureaucracy over human lives. 

Mark Johnson, Advocacy Lead at the Asylum Seekers Centre, emphasises that the ongoing uncertainty built into Australia’s current system actively compounds this deep psychological harm for people seeking asylum in our community..

“In our recent submission to the Senate Inquiry, the Asylum Seekers Centre  highlights critical issues within the onshore protection system. 

“We call for the onshore program to be uncapped and decoupled from the offshore intake, allowing decisions to be made based on evidence and legal obligations.”

Billions spent on cruelty

Australia’s offshore detention regime has been widely condemned. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly denounced the policy as a stain on Australia’s human rights record, putting it directly at odds with the country’s commitment to the Refugee Convention.

A recent UN report from the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants reiterates that Australia “cannot avoid responsibility by contracting out their obligations to other States”.

The report confirms that these practices “have severe impacts on persons in vulnerable situations, including children, entail gendered risks, and pose heightened risks for groups exposed to intersectional discrimination.”

This is among the many external reviewers who say the same thing: offshore detention is cruel.

Yet the regime still persists today. More than 90 people remain detained on Nauru and operations continue to be funded, with the Albanese government spending close to a mammoth $1 billion on offshore processing on Nauru in the last financial year. A small number of refugees remain trapped in Papua New Guinea too, some of whom have been there since 2013.

“Spending on offshore detention is out of control,” Mr Buol said. 

“The government was around $400 million over budget in the last financial year. These expensive human rights abuses must end.”

Time for real change

Meanwhile, around 800-900 people, including Anna, form part of the so-called “transitory cohort” and are still living in legal limbo in the community in Australia. Many live on temporary visas, often without secure work rights or consistent access to Medicare. Some now have Australian partners and children born here. Yet they still have no clear pathway to permanency.

Mr Buol urged the Prime Minister to honour his sentiments from the election night speech to “show courage in adversity and kindness to those in need”.

More than a decade on, it is time for the Albanese government to end offshore detention for good and ensure the humane treatment and fair processing of people seeking asylum.

We must end this shameful chapter of Australian history once and for all.