16th
February 2015
Dear
Minister Dutton,
On 11th
February I listened to the Prime Minister scornfully dismissing Professor
Gillian Triggs' thorough and objective Report on children in detention. It was
a disgraceful performance and did nothing at all to instil any confidence in
the parliamentary process.
How have we come to sink so low? It is surely time
for your government to start listening and to refrain from hectoring and
insulting our intelligence. Shooting the messenger will not make the problems
go away.
Professor
Triggs' Report amounts to a thorough and comprehensive indictment of the
policies of both the current Coalition Government and the Labor Government
before it. How can the government hold more than 100 children indefinitely on
Nauru, given that both Chris Bowen MP and Scott Morrison MP both agreed on oath
before the Enquiry that holding children in detention does not deter either
asylum seekers or people smugglers?
What possible rationale can the government
offer, then, for the indefinite detention of children seeking asylum in Australia?
The findings
set out in the Report are both shocking and shameful. No other country mandates
the closed and indefinite detention of asylum seekers. It is clear that the
actions of the Government, and its predecessor, are in breach of our
international obligations.
I call on
the Government to give the most serious and urgent consideration to the
recommendations set out in the Report and to make a serious commitment to
the Australian people that the
recommendations will be acted on in the shortest possible timeframe.
I look forward
to receiving your response to the questions raised above.
Yours
sincerely,
Mike
Griffin
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