Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Madeleine Ogilvie, has congratulated Labor’s Shadow Minister for Immigration, Richard Marles, for tabling a private members bill requiring mandatory reporting of all child abuse at immigration detention centres.
“Under the proposed bill, staff at immigration detention centres would be legally bound to report all child abuse,” Ms Ogilvie said.
“Labor’s immigration and asylum seeker policy contains this humane, practical and sensible approach. To think centres under our control are not subject to the most basic principles of human rights is abhorrent.
“The nation is behind the doctors and staff at the Royal Children’s Hospital who are quite rightly refusing to return children to detention.
“Our Labor policy provides for an increase in the humanitarian intake to 27,000, independent oversight of detention centres, funded legal aid and medical assistance and Australia’s re-engagement with our region.
“But I recognise that detention is not the way to go. There is a world of difference between running detention camps and the processing of humanitarian visas overseas.
“I have long campaigned to get the women and children off the detention islands first. We were ready to offer safe haven in Tasmania.
“The short-sighted Liberal decision to render Pontville uninhabitable has completely undermined Tasmania’s capacity to do more.
“The people of Tasmania are ready willing and able to receive the kids here.”
Madeleine Ogilvie MP Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs
