A recent Australian Human Rights Commission report on risk management in immigration detention has come and gone with little notice. To many readers the topic will seem recondite and the possibility of it producing change low. Both the report and the response to it by the Department of Home Affairs, however, demonstrated the irrelevance of human rights in the development and administration of policy concerning people who seek asylum.
The report itself is methodical and helpful, offering an overview of the number and variety of Australian immigration detention centres, the categories of people held in them and the points at which perceived risks are eliminated at the cost of respect for the humanity of the people detained. The report and its recommendations were informed by interviews with people detained, visitors to the centres and officers of the Australian Border Force. The recommendations are modest, but if fully implemented would make the conditions of people detained marginally less soul-destroying.
The report also offers examples of the human effects of risk management procedures on people. The possibility of smuggling or introducing harmful substances in food, for example, prevented a visitor from bringing in a cake for a detained child to celebrate her second birthday party.
The report and the response reveal the gulf between the philosophies and priorities of the government and its plaintiffs. People who take human rights seriously do so because they believe in the unique value of each human being. For this reason they believe that law and its administration must work within a framework of respect for human dignity. They expect that if they point out violations of human rights the response will either deny such violation or will correct it by changing legal and administrative processes. Humanity trumps instruments of control.
The Australian government's treatment of people who seek asylum, however, is based on subordinating the humanity and rights of people to a policy of control, with all the laws and processes that implement it. Humanity and human rights are expendable when set against instrumental policies and regulations. That is true of the detention regime generally and of the way in which it is administered. The distress and loss of faith in humanity of a family whose birthday party is spoiled counts for nothing in comparison with the goal of seamless control.
The Department's response to the Commission's recommendations is understandable in this context. It is unyielding to its insistence, based on