Key Points
- Australia’s peak human rights body has raised concerns about the hotel immigration detention system.
- In a new report, it notes the mental health impact on asylum seekers detained in the system.
- It has made a series of recommendations to the Department of Home Affairs.
When Novak Djokovic was briefly detained in an immigration detention hotel over his vaccination status before the 2022 Australian Open, he also inadvertently shone a light on the asylum seekers who were being kept in the same building at the same time.
They’d been medically evacuated from offshore detention and held in the hotel system. But unlike the tennis star, they’d spent a lot longer than five days there.
Djokovic has since spoken up about the plight of the asylum seekers.
When told in May last year the asylum seekers he was detained alongside for a week in Melbourne — — had , Djokovic said he was "very happy about it" and couldn't imagine how those who had spent time there felt.
"They haven't done anything wrong, and they are asylum seekers and stayed for nine years," he said at the time.
But some believe he should have spoken out earlier.
Mostafa Azimitabar, , believes the tennis star should have done more.
“He didn't talk about (the conditions) when he was there," he told SBS News.
Mr Azimitabar, in the Federal Court over the issue of hotel detention, said Djokovic could have talked about the “inhumanity” of the system while he was there.
“He talked about it when he got back (home)...when he was there he didn't say any words.”
Mostafa Azimitabar, who spent 15 months detained in Park Hotel before being released, believes Djokovic should have done more. Source: SBS News / Angus McDonald
The report raised concerns about the “discretionary” powers of the immigration minister in determining who gets to be released from hotel immigration detention and the conditions of their release.
Hotels were used to detain asylum seekers who had been medically evacuated from offshore detention centres. The majority of those currently detained in hotels have had their visas cancelled.
While the number of those who are currently detained in hotels has dropped dramatically — from 182 in December 2020, to 29 as at January 2023 — the report found the system had “severe negative impacts” on the mental health of those detained.
From maggots and mould in the food served to those in hotel detention, to the severe mental health impacts from the lack of fresh air and appropriate medical care, the report goes into detail of the various issues.
Mr Azimitabar says he once had a stomach ache after eating something with a "rotten kind of cheese".
"I just had a tiny bit of it and I had a huge stomachache, and like I thought I'm gonna die," he said.
"When I went outside the room in the corridor, I saw that everyone was in that situation."
One person detained in a hotel described the experience as “torture”.
“Two or three years ago I could think about life outside but now I am not capable of envisaging outside at all," the unnamed individual said, as detailed in the report. "I have no imagination; everything is blurry and now can’t see anything.”
The AHRC said hotels should not be used as long-term places of detention under any circumstances.
One individual was detained for almost two years - 634 days - in a hotel.
The AHRC was also concerned at how ministerial intervention was used to determine who could and couldn’t leave, and under what conditions.
“Many of those released had similar circumstances to those who remained in detention. The releases were described to us by one community service organisation as having ‘occurred arbitrarily under a veil of secrecy’," the report said.
“From the outside, the process appeared to have no discernible pattern.”
The AHRC also noted that hotel detention was not cost-effective, citing Australian Border Force which estimated the cost to be about $471,493 per person in 2019-20.
It would cost a maximum of $46,490 if they had their status determined while residing in the community, the report said.
In a response to the AHRC, the Department of Home Affairs said it noted some of the recommendations. It said the use of hotel detention was "always premised on the shortest possible time and has significantly reduced".
It also noted the AHRC's recommendations around the ministerial powers.
"The personal intervention powers are non-compellable, that is, the ministers are not required to exercise their power.
"Further, what is in the public interest is a matter for the ministers to determine.
SBS News has contacted the Department of Home Affairs for comment.
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