The Australian Government Is Fuming Over the AHRC's Report on Children in Detention

Last week the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) handed down a damning report into the conditions in which the Australian government detains asylum seeker children. The Prime Minister responded to the report by recommending the commission send former Immigration Minister Scott Morrison a thank-you note for his work protecting human rights.

The The Forgotten Children report does not make for easy reading. Its findings included that between January 2013 and March 2014 there were 233 recorded assaults involving children with 33 incidents of sexual assault. It also reported 128 acts of self-harm committed by underage detainees. During the first half of 2014 nearly one in three children was assessed as having a serious mental disorder. The report calls for a Royal Commission into the harm being done by by long term detention, and for children to be detained only for "health, identity and security checks, for a strictly limited time".

Despite the report examing both the Liberal and Labor governments' detention regimes, and despite its use of data provided by the Department of Immigration, The Prime Minister responded by dismissing it as a "blatantly partisan, politicised exercise," adding that the AHRC should be "ashamed of itself". The PM argues that because the report was delivered under his government and not Labor's, when there was a record number of children in detention, it is therefore politically motivated.

In the interview with Fairfax Radio the Prime Minister suggested the AHRC should have written to Scott Morrison saying "Well done, mate because your actions have been very good for the human rights and the human flourishing of thousands of people."

Morrison in turn attempted to cast doubt on the findings, telling ABC radio "I don't think we should go to the point of calling it evidence." Current Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said the prospect of a Royal Commission is unlikely. But Canberra didn't stopped at mere indignation.

Gillian Triggs, the president of the AHRC (who VICE spoke to last year when the commission was holding public hearings) has been under pressure to resign. Just two weeks before the report was released publicly, the government sought her resignation. The backlash has been such that the United Nations publically defended both Triggs and the commission itself.

Someone with an intimate knowledge of the report is Professor Elizabeth Elliott from the Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney. She toured Christmas Island as an independant consultant at the request of the AHRC, and told VICE she feels insulted by the claims of political bias.

"Having seen the amount of work that has gone in to this report and having seen what the findings are I am very disappointed that the government hasn't at least thanked and acknowledged the AHRC and responded to their recommendations".

Professor Elliott also points out that the alarming figures on sexual assault and incidences of self harm came from within the Department of Immigration. "Most data included in the report was not collected by the Human Rights Commission", she said.

Professor Elliott says she was personally disturbed by the things she saw and heard whilst touring processing facilities. Very young children showing extreme signs of anxiety to older kids expressing a complete lack of hope, telling her they feel the only way out of detention might be suicide. She describes the distressed she witnessed was "quite genuine and quite extreme".

Professor Elliot says although refugee kids who have witnessed "abductions, shootings, killings or other torture" before they came to Australia may be more susceptible to mental stress, "if you plonked normal Australian children of that age into that setting you would likely see the same issues".

The latest figures, from the Department of Immigration show 211 children are still being held in detention, with 119 of those on Nauru. With Tony Abbott professing no guilt whatsoever about the reports findings, it is likely the practice of long-term detention of children won't end anytime soon.

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