Under the changes, a professional who works in an immigration facility can speak out only if they have been given departmental approval.
Last Wednesday the new Australian Border Force Act became a reality. In essence it makes ‘entrusted’ government employees and contractors who work in and around immigration in the Border Force regime, liable to two years jail if they become whistle-blowers. It’s as simple as that.
New guidelines under the Act, which set out for how these staff – including doctors, teachers and social workers employed in detention centres – must conduct themselves, feature a heavy focus on secrecy. Under the changes, a professional who works in an immigration facility can speak out only if they have been given departmental approval.
It means that if the government is doing something in the immigration sphere that we may not like or agree with, they are making it close to impossible for us to find out about it. As an ‘insider’, if you tell the public and you become a whistleblower, you could well go to jail.
Now, this is not a Liberal/National Party conspiracy. The Labor opposition supported the changes too.
A challenge to freedoms
I think we should be very worried about this politician-driven challenge to our freedoms and should object strongly. Why? Because politicians on both sides have a track record of not being honest with us.
Remember John Howard and the ‘children overboard’ saga, where the politicians said one thing and it took the naval command to take the moral high ground and present the real story?
On the other side of politics, many will remember Peter Garrett’s office claiming they did not know of the dangers of installing insulation – staples through the foil into electrical wires and heat exhaustion in the rooves. Then, many months later, we discover that they had been warned repeatedly and had chosen to ignore the warnings. Several young men died and there were several house fires.
In the case of this new Act, it is now an offence for an “entrusted person” to make a record of or disclose “protected information”. And what is “protected information”? Well, the experts are saying it is basically all information that somebody gains knowledge of while being an employee of government.
Ok if it’s ‘reasonable
The new Act does make exceptions – wiggle room if you like, for a whistleblower. Section 48 says it’s okay to reveal protected information if, “the entrusted person reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious threat to the life or health of an individual”.
But the rub is, what is “reasonably believes”? The whistleblower has to make this judgement and if the authorities disagree with that call, then it is off to court for the whistleblower!
History has not been kind to whistleblowers in such encounters and under this Act, if the whistleblower loses after the lengthy court process, jail is a likely outcome.
Now this Act was specifically developed to support law enforcement around illegal immigration. On the surface this is fine – nobody wants to make it easy for people smugglers.
But it’s important to remember that, when you give away a freedom or right, it is hard to get it back. Plus it becomes a precedent that slowly works its way into being the norm. Then there is the question of where do we stop?
There is stuff we need to know
Last week, 40 health and human rights professionals who have personally witnessed child abuse in detention centres, sent an open letter to the government. They warned they “have advocated and will continue to advocate, for the health of those for whom we have a duty of care, despite the threats of imprisonment, because standing by and watching sub-standard and harmful care, child abuse and gross violations of human rights is not ethically justifiable.
They recognise that if they speak out under the new act they are in trouble but they say, “Evidence of the devastating effects of institutional self-protection and blindness to child abuse has been presented before the current royal commission. We are determined not to collude with a system that repeats the same mistakes”.
They know what they are talking about; all 40 describe themselves as ‘former’ employees in the immigration system. They are now out of the system and could simply walk away but choose not to – they still care for their fellow human beings.
We need people like them. We need to protect them. We need to hold on to our freedom and to make our governments accountable, whatever their colour. We need to get rid of this Act.
Read the open letter here: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/01/detention-centre-staff-speak-out-in-defiance-of-new-asylum-secrecy-laws
Discussion1 Comment
As far as I am concerned, the government has done a great job, addressing the problems left this country by the hopeless Labor administration, especially the boats.
But look, do we need (somewhat biased) political articles on this forum? We are flooded with it in other media already. There is no shortage of village issues to discuss.