Transcript of Hearing -
ADELAIDE
TUESDAY, 2 JULY 2002
Please note: This is an edited transcript
DR SEV OZDOWSKI, Human Rights Commissioner
MRS ROBIN SULLIVAN, Queensland Children's Commissioner
PROFESSOR TRANG
THOMAS, Professor of Psychology
Melbourne Institute of Technology
MS VANESSA LESNIE, Secretary to the Inquiry
HILTON HOTEL
(MEETING ROOM B)
DR OZDOWSKI: I would like to formally open the second day of hearings in Adelaide. This is one of the hearings conducted around Australia for the National Inquiry into Children in Detention. My name is Sev Ozdowski, I'm the Human Rights Commissioner. With me is Mrs Robin Sullivan to my left, who is Queensland Children's Commissioner, and Dr Trang Thomas, on my right, is Professor of Psychology at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. They are Assistant Commissioners helping me with the Inquiry.
Now, I would like to invite Mrs Sue Park and Mrs Beverley Hartigan to join us to give their evidence. As you know we have received your submission, thank you very much for it, and the task we have got in front of us is to test the evidence which has been provided to us. So we will be asking you a number of questions about your submissions, the issues you raise and about some other issues. I would like to ask you to take an oath or affirmation.
MS SUSAN PARK,
affirmed
MS BEVERLEY HARTIGAN, sworn
The Association of Major Charitable Organisations (SA) Inc
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, I would like to ask you for the record you state your name, address, qualification and capacity in which you are appearing. May be let us start from the left?
MS PARK: My name is Susan Park, I live at [address removed]. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Adelaide Central Mission and a social worker by profession, I'm here representing the Association of Major Community Organisations.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you.
MS HARTIGAN: My name is Beverley Hartigan and I live at [address removed]. I'm a qualified social worker and I'm here also on behalf of AMCO.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you. The Commission believes that it is important to respect privacy of individuals and to protect children, in particular. So when giving the evidence I would like to ask you to remember that I have issued a number of orders relating to privacy. In particular, I would like to ask you to ensure that the identity of asylum seekers is not disclosed during the hearings and that the identity of third parties is also not disclosed. This includes former employees of the detention centres. If you have names or information that you would like to give in confidence, you can do so later to Vanessa Lesnie, sitting on my left, who is the Secretary to the Inquiry. Now, I would like to invite you to make an opening statement. In particular, I would like to ask you to establish the basis of your knowledge of what is happening in detention centres and especially to children. I understand, you had some eleven visits, but please put it on record.
MS PARK: Okay. I would like to set the context. The Association of Major Community Organisations represents all the major welfare organisations in South Australia including all of the church organisations. So we have Adelaide Central Mission, Wesley Uniting Mission and Port Adelaide Central Mission from the Uniting Church, Centrecare from the Catholic Church, Mission Australia, Lutheran Community Care, Anglicare from the Anglican Church, the Salvation Army and as well as that the Red Cross. Our organisations provide a very wide range of welfare services including foster care, a range of services around family counselling and have some particular expertise around working in areas of child abuse.
Very few of our staff have had access to the detention centre, but the group AMCO received our submission from the group of lawyers who are outposted at Woomera. We provide financial support to that group of lawyers to underpin the costs and pay for interpreters. The bulk of our submission is based on evidence that has been provided to us by that group of lawyers, the people that we support. I personally have not had contact with refugees, but Beverley has.
DR OZDOWSKI: I understand you interviewed a number of people in preparation of this submission, so basically you interviewed the lawyers and the members of other organisations which had a direct contact with Woomera?
MS PARK: No, the lawyers interviewed a number of people
DR OZDOWSKI: The lawyers.
MS PARK: and then sent the report through to us.
DR OZDOWSKI: Okay, thank you very much and could I learn about your, Ms Hartigan, contact with children in detention now.
MS HARTIGAN: Yes. So I've been in to the Woomera Detention Centre on five separate occasions from October 2001 to April this year and it was always in a volunteer capacity and each occasion was about 8 hours duration. Although I made application to enter Woomera in my own professional capacity, this was always denied and so I had to register as a paralegal with the Woomera Legal Outpost to gain entry. It wasn't until April this year that the Department of Immigration showed any interest in allowing AMCO to provide welfare services to refugees in Woomera in an ongoing capacity.
Whilst I was in the detention centre I conducted and documented many interviews with refugees who had requested legal assistance. So I couldn't ask to interview people in my own right and all of those that were interviewed had previously requested that legal assistance. So there were single men and women, there were family groups and single women. I wasn't allowed to visit people in their accommodation to view their living conditions. So all the information that I got from the refugees was within the interview room situation. So all of the interviews were conducted in very small interview rooms, they were about 3 metres square and it was very uncomfortable for the family groups, plus having a lawyer and an interpreter in the room at the same time.
Prior to Christmas, however, we had access to a transportable room, it had tea making facilities and large tables and chairs and we were able to set that up as an informal community room and that was for the benefit of the women and children to have them in a better environment for interviewing. So we were able to provide snack foods, sweets, drinks, pencils, books, toys and clothing that had been donated by different communities in Adelaide. So in this way we were able to talk in a more relaxed way and to conduct more informal interviews.
DR OZDOWSKI: So how does it work from a practical point of view, if you would like to go and see somebody there say, if you heard about a family in particular circumstances and you would like to go and see them, would you need to do?
MS HARTIGAN: Well, I have to get in touch with the Legal Outpost and I have to find out from them when they are going up, if they have got room to take me. If it's acceptable for them I went and I only have access to their client group. I don't have the right to ask the individuals to come.
DR OZDOWSKI: So you don't have any individual access to detainees. What about if a family group or a detainee would like to see you, would send you a letter, yes, please to come we have got things to discuss?
MS HARTIGAN: I don't think that they realise that that's their right to have that and so it was part of the process that I informed all of the groups that I saw that they could request this, but it wasn't until April this year that we had a formal letter saying that we could do that and that hasn't been followed up yet. So when I went in there with the lawyers group, if I heard that a woman or family group had any social issues or welfare issues I then interviewed them and took notes and tried to follow up in some capacity back here in Adelaide. I had some continuity with the clients, but quite often we weren't sure who we were going to see on the day, it just depended if they were available or doing something else, so we weren't even sure of the contacts that we had prior to going in there.
DR OZDOWSKI: But what you are saying is that since April
MS HARTIGAN: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: at least theoretically
MS HARTIGAN: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: if the detainees request your visit then you can go and see them?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: And the situation prior to April was that you didn't even have that opportunity?
MS HARTIGAN: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: Do you know why it was so?
MS HARTIGAN: No, I don't.
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, coming to the Child Protection Act, you possibly are quite involved with child protection in South Australia?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: How effective is that piece of legislation with relation to children in Woomera?
MS HARTIGAN: From the situations I know, although we made requests for FAYS to be involved, as far as I know it didn't happen at all. So we had reported some circumstances that we were very concerned with and yet there was no follow up.
DR OZDOWSKI: What kind of circumstances they were, they related to welfare of children or
MS HARTIGAN: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: it was instances of sexual abuse, what kind
MS HARTIGAN: No, it was in relation to the welfare of children, if through talking with a mother quite often they would say:
The children are suicidal, or the children are so depressed, or I feel like I don't want to have contact with my children any more. I am so depressed I can't stand to have my children with me any more.
So in those circumstances we tried to report, but I don't think any action was taken.
DR OZDOWSKI: If you had a similar situation in the broader South Australian community and if you reported it to the department would there any action be taken?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, immediately.
DR OZDOWSKI: Immediately?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: So why does the department not involve itself with children in Woomera who are also in that jurisdiction?
MS HARTIGAN: I suspect it was because all of the reporting had to be done through officers, through ACM officers, that we weren't accepted to be reporters in that situation and I suspect it was something to do with the State and Federal Government
DR OZDOWSKI: Legislation.
MS HARTIGAN: control and legislation, yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Now in your submission you also mentioned the mental health of children, about the feeling of despair at the utmost. Could you perhaps explore this issue a bit further?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: What do you observe when you go to
MS HARTIGAN: I can just give a few general indications of what I observed and it was quite often the mothers were extremely depressed and then the children some times took on the nurturing role of the parent. One particular incident I can recall was a women in her 40s who had a daughter who was about 12 years old. The mother had internal medical problems and she couldn't walk, she was very debilitated and it seemed to be that that child was taking care of the mother, you know, fussing about the mother. So that there was a role reversal there. Also the last time I went in there I was with a young mother that had two children, one of 8 and one of about 9 and the mother had five stitches in her lips.
She was very modest about it, she had a veil up before her mouth, but the children were very much aware of the circumstances of the mother and they were very protective of her, they were clinging very close to her. There was all this sort that the children were seeing and they were part of, and that was the time also that there were graves dug in one of the main compounds and the children had free access to see this, the plight of those people. So they were aware of it every day, passing, walking around this area, it was very bad.
DR OZDOWSKI: Would you go as far as to say that the family cannot function properly in the condition of detention?
MS HARTIGAN: No, definitely not. They can't function at all as a family. I'll just give you one indication and this relates to the care of pregnant women and birth and afterwards what happened. In normal circumstances the family would be very connected at this time, but the wife was forcibly taken from the detention centre down to a hospital and she had her waters broken forcibly as she didn't give consent, neither did her husband and the wife demanded an interpreter, she wasn't given an interpreter, so that the husband was disconnected from that process. After the birth the woman didn't have the baby for a week, she couldn't bond with the child, she couldn't breast feed the child, the husband was distraught, the mother was very depressed.
When they returned to Woomera the mother was still in a medical condition that required some sort of extra support but that wasn't given. We were told that there were no medical interventions when she returned to Woomera, that the husband had to nurse her. The mother was very depressed, very despondent, couldn't bond or relate to the child. She couldn't feed the child and on numerous occasions when the husband asked for milk for the baby it was denied. One day he had to wait until 4 o'clock in the afternoon to feed the baby. It's all this sort of trauma that's impacting on that families. Now, if this family is released in to the Australian community they have got life long problems with both the mother and the child and the functioning of that family as a unit, all
DR OZDOWSKI: Was a psychological counselling or support provided to the mother while in detention?
MS HARTIGAN: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: No.
MS HARTIGAN: I've been told not, no. I can give you evidence later if you would like.
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes, we would like to take the evidence.
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, yes, I'm
DR OZDOWSKI: So how would you judge what would be the long term impact on children of this family disintegration which you are suggesting is happening in detention centres?
MS HARTIGAN: Well, it's a real alienation of the children from the family. Also the parents, all of their rights as parents seem to be taken away in these circumstances. The parents are not allowed to prepare food for their children, for example, in some situations the husband is released on a visa and the wife and children are still in the camps and often he can't have access to visit the family. On another occasion there's a family I know where the mother and children are here in Woomera, the father is released in Sydney. So he can't visit or have contact with the family. The family is completely disintegrated in those situations and whether there's the opportunity for them to bond again I'm really not sure.
MS LESNIE: In those situations where you say the father hasn't been able to visit, is it because of the proximity?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, it could be proximity, it could be money. In some cases we've asked for the mother and children to be relocated to Villawood so that they can visit and have contact.
MS LESNIE: So it is not that the centre is denying access to the father, it is just that he can't get there?
MS HARTIGAN: Well, in some cases, yes, in some cases I've heard of fathers that have tried to get in and have been denied access or that they have been kept waiting outside for hours and hours on end, yes.
MS LESNIE: In the cases where you have heard that the father has been denied access, was there a reason given to the father?
MS HARTIGAN: No, there's never reasons given for denying access and on occasions when we have gone there to interview when we have had permission to interview, we have been denied access as well, this is the lawyers group. So we are kept waiting outside and on tenter hooks wondering if we can get in that day or what time we can get in.
DR OZDOWSKI: And now before I will ask my Assistant Commissioners to ask some further questions, I would like to refer you to page 7 of your report where you said that ACM report that children regularly participate in social and sporting activities. Could you indicate to me where this ACM report is made?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, I didn't see anything like that going on, in fact, I've read through this submission and report and a lot of the information in here I haven't seen any evidence of. I was just going to raise on page 8 some conditions as well. Did you want me to talk about that now, or
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes, please, please.
MS LESNIE: Are you referring to page 8 of the department's submission?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, the department's submission.
DR OZDOWSKI: Submission, okay. Yes, please, go on please.
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, and halfway down it says that:
Under Australian law that all detainees have the same rights to challenge as all other detainees.
Well, I would think that the women in the detention centres don't have that right. That women, they are not seen as an individual and I'm sure a lot of them don't know that they have rights as an individual person to make submissions. That a lot of the women feel that they are just seen as an appendage of their husband, they haven't been questioned as an individual and even culturally they don't have access to women interviewers and they don't know that they can have this.
So I can give one small example about a women who had never been interviewed, even by immigration officials originally for the visa application and she had a lot of issues back in her home, her home of origin and she had kept this information secret from her husband because all of the interviews were done with him. Now, at one stage when we had a female lawyer and myself we informed her that she could be interviewed as an individual and that her story had to be known as well and she was very surprised at this because nobody had told her this previously.
When this information came out of her past it would have really influenced her Visa application if this had been known, and so the information was sent down to the correct channels and a letter was written to her and addressed to her, but the husband was given the letter and it was in English. It went to an interpreter, the interpreter who was another inmate, interpreted for the husband. So all of those very intimate details about the wife's previous issues were made known to the husband then and there, he hadn't know anything of that before. So he was humiliated in front of the interpreter, the interpreter knew of the woman's supposed shame and that family has now disintegrated.
Now, what can be done to reunite them I'm really not sure, I haven't had contact with them since that time. So they are the sorts of issues that the women are not aware of and they are not told immediately when they come to Australia during that first interview that they can be seen by other women. So it is all a cultural issue as well. So that was one very traumatic incident that sort of makes a mockery of this page 8, evidence here.
DR OZDOWSKI: You mentioned at least twice during giving your evidence about access to interpreters. Is that problem, in your experience, prevalent, there is not enough use of interpreters made?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: It is.
MS HARTIGAN: Most of the detainees within Woomera they will use other people within detention who have limited English and so
DR OZDOWSKI: To talk to officials?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, yes. So there might be other agendas and I've always had very grave concerns about this happening, but it happens all the time.
DR OZDOWSKI: Do you know anything about the schooling provided to children in Woomera?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, all of the parents that we interviewed raised concerns about the education and the lack of education and the quality of the education that was there. One particular family who had, they were a middle class family, their children had been very well educated back in their homeland and they were concerned about the limited education that was provided for their children. It was such a poor quality, they didn't get any of the mathematics and physics that the children were used to having back in their homeland. It was just very basic English, all of the families were concerned about the level of education and the adolescents raised that with us as well.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you. Dr Sullivan?
MRS SULLIVAN: Thank you. Are there any other issues in that report you wish to continue to refer to before we move on to something else?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, on page 51, I was interested to see about the Woomera residential housing project because I'd heard about it as well and I applied on numerous occasions to find out the address and to have access to the housing project of the families living in the community and this was always denied, in fact, I still don't know if it actually exists. I have never seen it and we have never had access to it. So that was one grave concern of mine that to see just how these families were being integrated in to Australian society.
What sort of supports were there for them and indeed how we, as AMCO, could support them further because when we were talking with the families we realised that it was the very, very basic needs that were missing from their lives and that we, as a welfare organisation, could provide for them, for example, appropriate clothing. A lot of the women had no underwear and it wasn't provided for them within detention and so we were able to get involved with agencies here in Adelaide and buy and provide underwear, cotton vests, that sort of thing for the women, because they were completely lacking.
Most of them when they went into the detention centre had either lost or had all of their belongings stolen and even appropriate footwear, the provision of rubber thongs for the women and children in summer time, this wasn't provided and so it was only through the welfare agencies that we were able to give this sort of assistance. Snacks, sweets, pencils, books, toys, all those very basic needs for the children we were able to get them from, or source them from agencies here in Adelaide and take them into the detention centre, but on occasions for reasons unknown to us we were not allowed to take these goods in to the detainees in there. So we just had to keep them on the bus, it was denied, we were denied that.
MRS SULLIVAN: So you are not aware of any other groups that are supporting this housing initiative?
MS HARTIGAN: No, not at all.
DR OZDOWSKI: Did you speak to husbands who remain in Woomera and have families in the housing project?
MS HARTIGAN: I haven't, no.
DR OZDOWSKI: No, thank you.
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, it was on the - on page 85, on the recreation and social activities, when I went up there the week before Easter, that was the first time that I had seen the children being taken to swimming pool. So a lot of these activities are very new and they are initiatives as if they are happening and if they are ongoing but I hadn't seen evidence of a lot of this happening, but I was denied access to - to go in to any other part of the detention centre other than the main compound. I wasn't allowed to go into the residential areas, into the accommodation blocks.
MRS SULLIVAN: On page 9 of your report you cite some statistics about children with disabilities in the centre?
MS HARTIGAN: Mm.
MRS SULLIVAN: I would just ask where you sourced those statistics from in the first instance, it is a bit unclear to me, is it from the National Ethnic Disability Alliance that those stats came from?
MS HARTIGAN: I'm not sure of that. Sue would be able to answer that.
MS PARK: This information was given to us again by the group of lawyers, I can't say where that was sourced from.
MRS SULLIVAN: That is fine. Well, my second question is, what experience, if any, have you had of children with disabilities in the centre?
MS HARTIGAN: I haven't had any personally. All I've seen was one child with dwarfism and he was just nurtured within his family, looked after there but I couldn't comment on that.
MRS SULLIVAN: Yes. One of your recommendations is the return of management of detention facilities to the government, to DIMIA. Could you comment on that in terms of its impact on children's well being?
MS PARK: I think our overriding view, given the expertise that our agencies have in working with children and families is that families with children should not be detained. That is our primary position. A number of our agencies provide foster care and foster care can be a very useful way of caring for children under circumstances where their families can't care for them but it is definitely not, it is a last resort. Children should be staying with their families wherever possible. So that is our primary view. We are very concerned about issues of accountability and so we would prefer to see a return to government from the point of view of accountability.
DR OZDOWSKI: Wouldn't you think that possibly accountability would be lessened if it is only held in government hands because at the moment the function of provider and purchaser is split and usually when power is split the controls function better.
MS PARK: We don't see many signs of accountability at the moment. As you have heard we have often been denied access with very few reasons, with no reasons given for that and it is a major concern that we can know so little about what is occurring. We are basing our information on whatever we can gather but there is very little information available to us so it is hard to imagine that accountability would deteriorate.
MS HARTIGAN: Also I think as a service provider too we are interested in strategies that can improve the conditions in Baxter when Baxter opens. So as a group of welfare organisations we are really concerned about the social integration programs and the strengthening family programs that can be introduced and we have seen no evidence of that at the moment in Woomera.
MRS SULLIVAN: Have you had any involvement in the pre-planning for Baxter?
MS HARTIGAN: No, none at all.
MRS SULLIVAN: There's a comment in your submission about some women from a particular group being concerned about sexual assault and I assume by implication that means the female, younger female members of that group. Do you want to indicate how this information came to you and I guess comment on it?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes, I think some of the information would have come from the lawyer groups who would have interviewed them but I have interviewed one of the women. She was a younger woman, late teens I think, and she was here alone without the support of a father or brothers, anything like that, and she was constantly afraid and this particular woman was working in the kitchen and a lot of the time the food that she prepared, others wouldn't eat and it is just that cultural problem that raises all the time that the groups are very, very divided. So she was frightened for most of the time.
MRS SULLIVAN: Does this transmit to the groups of children?
MS HARTIGAN: I don't think the younger children are as aware of it and I didn't see any indication of it with the younger children but certainly there were concerns from their mothers.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you. Professor Thomas?
PROF THOMAS: In your report you mention about the children and especially the adolescents do not access what little opportunities or services are available to them. So how would you suggest to break the deadlock, would it seem like a vicious circle, because whatever little is offered to them they do not use and or some times it is even mentioned that they were set fire to on and then in another way it is not enough, not good enough for them. So how would you comment on that please?
MS HARTIGAN: I think it is the high level of depression and hopelessness and they feel so really hopeless in there and they are helpless to do anything to make things better for themselves. The compounds are divided by fences and so quite often there's no communication between one compound and another compound that people that came out on the same boats to Australia seem to be separated so the friendships that were forged at that time are broken when they enter into Woomera and a lot of the adolescents too are divided. They don't have access to come together as a group and they have no say in the provision of services for them.
I'm sure if somebody outside the ACM could come in and offer services perhaps from an outside welfare organisation that they saw that others were completely independent, they might then interact more readily but a lot of the adolescents don't get up till lunch time, they can't see any reason to get up. There is no reason for them and a lot of the programs that are provided are so ad hoc, they are not regular, and they just seem to think that it is useless anyway so why bother if they don't feel secure in their own future. It is a very depressing situation for them to be in.
MS PARK: I would like to just add something to that again to say that our overriding view is that they shouldn't be there. There are no doubt some things that may be able to be done to ameliorate it and our agencies would be willing to be involved to attempt to make some - to do some of that work. However the basic issue is that they should not be there.
DR OZDOWSKI: Possibly Minister Ruddock would respond to it that if we will let families out of the detention then families will start, not single people, start coming on the boats again. How would you respond to this argument?
MS PARK: I don't believe that we should be detaining children and young people as a matter of deterrence and that is a view that is shared by AMCO agencies. That policy is not a reasonable one for holding children in detention.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you.
MS HARTIGAN: And I can respond by saying that I've had some contact with families once they have been released and they make every effort to become integrated, to learn more about Australia. They want to become good citizens.
DR OZDOWSKI: Despite the treatment they receive in detention centres?
MS HARTIGAN: Yes.
PROF THOMAS: You also mentioned that mental health services are insufficient for the needs of the asylum seekers. Can you elaborate on that please?
MS HARTIGAN: I've been told during interviews that quite often the detainees had requested assistance, they had requested to see the nurse, they had requested to see the doctor, they had requested to have counselling and this wasn't forthcoming. Sometimes they were told that they had to wait 1 or 2 weeks and nothing ever eventuated. In the case of the man whose wife had the forced caesarean, he didn't get any medical assistance, he said, when the wife went back to Woomera, none at all, even though the wound was weeping and he was very concerned. He had to dress his wife's wounds.
PROF THOMAS: What do you think is the effect of the riots or the violence on children?
MS HARTIGAN: I think it is having a very dramatic effect on the children, that they are seeing this on a daily, you know, daily they are seeing or they are hearing about people attempting suicide. They have seen the graves, they have seen the women with the stitches in their mouths. They have seen the riots. It is really disturbing for them psychologically. Their drawings are showing this impacting on them. A lot of the parents are complaining that the children are starting to wet the beds again, that they are waking up during the night, that they are having nightmares and these are for the younger children and it seemed to be that the adolescents just take to their beds and they just don't get up.
MS LESNIE: What sort of things are the drawings that you are seeing depicting?
MS HARTIGAN: The drawings always depict fences and barbed wire, faces with tears coming down their cheeks. They depict the water cannon. They are all fearful of the water cannon. They depict batons, beatings, and these are from small children. Sometimes they are only very basic stick figures but you can still see what the children are drawing.
MS LESNIE: What age would these children be who are drawing these pictures?
MS HARTIGAN: Seven, eight, nine.
DR OZDOWSKI: Anything more?
PROF THOMAS: Just one more question.
DR OZDOWSKI: Professor Thomas, one more question then we will have to finish.
PROF THOMAS: You recommended the management of the detention facilities should be by DIMIA. Do you think there would be advantages in this?
MS HARTIGAN: I think only that I would repeat the earlier comment that we believe that there is more opportunity for accountability under those circumstances.
DR OZDOWSKI: Any concluding statement? No?
MS PARK: No.
MS HARTIGAN: No, I think just to make things better for the future and that is what this submission was all about, how we can make it better for the families, the mothers, the children.
DR OZDOWSKI: Ms Park, Ms Hartigan, thank you very much for your evidence. Thank you also for your submissions. Should you wish to provide any further material please do so in writing.
MS HARTIGAN: Thank you.
MS PARK: Thank you.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you for coming. Now, I would like to ask our next witnesses, Mrs Joy de Leo and Mr Janusz Mikos to come forward. Good morning. Thank you for your submission and as you know, the purpose of this meeting, this hearing is to test the evidence which was provided in submissions to us. So I would like to ask you to take an oath or affirmation to start with.
MS JOY DE LEO,
affirmed [9.37am]
MR JANUSZ MIKOS, affirmed
Department of Multicultural Affairs
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, I would like to ask you for the record to state your names, addresses, qualifications and the capacity in which you are appearing at this hearing.
MS DE LEO: My name is Joy de Leo. My address is [address removed]. My qualifications are that I have a Bachelor of Arts Honours educational qualifications and I have worked in cross-cultural context in Aboriginal Affairs and Multicultural Affairs in both the Commonwealth government and the State government and as an educator. In my current capacity I am here as Executive Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs in the Department of Justice in the South Australian Government.
MR MIKOS: My name is Janusz Mikos. The address is [address removed] and I'm here in a supporting capacity to Ms de Leo. I manage the Government and Coordination Branch in the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
DR OZDOWSKI: Just to remind you that I made a number of rulings regarding privacy and to summarise them I would like to ask you not to reveal the identity of asylum seekers in making your submission. I would also ask you not to reveal the identity of third parties. This includes not disclosing of names of people who are working or who have worked for ACM or for other organisations. Now, could I ask you to make an opening statement? In particular what I would like to ask you to address is the issue of what you know about detention centres or about people who are released from detention centres and I would like also to focus on children in this context.
MS DE LEO: Thank you. In my capacity as Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs our role is to advise government on a wide range of issues relating to multicultural affairs. Our role is to promote the benefits of multiculturalism and cultural diversity, to promote harmony and social cohesion in the community and ensure that interpreting and translating services are provided. Our concerns are not directly related to people in detention and not directly related to settlement but rather you might say further down the track in terms of building the capacity of communities to be able to exercise their own culture, their own religion, speak their own language and also participate fully in the community.
So in terms of our knowledge of detention centres and asylum seekers it is not first hand. It is second hand. Our role has been under the former government a coordinating one. The coordination of information that is received from our colleagues with whom we liaise closely in State government agencies who are directly involved, whether that be in the Department of Human Services, in SAPOL or in other agencies that are involved. We liaise also with staff within DIMIA to obtain information about numbers of people in detention. We collect information about the costs incurred by the state government and we form an overall general picture of the situation from the information that is provided to us by the experts in health education and other agencies.
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, I understand that also an official from the Department of Education, Training and Employment was to be appearing with you.
MS DE LEO: Yes, he is here. His name is John Walsh and he
DR OZDOWSKI: Could we ask him to come forward and we will have to go through the same routines again. So if I could ask you to take an oath or affirmation first.
MR JOHN WALSH,
affirmed [9.45am]
English as Second Language Program, Department of Education and Children
Services
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you. Now, could I ask you to state your name, address and your capacity in which you are appearing here for the record?
MR WALSH: My name is John Walsh. My address is [address removed]. I'm the Manager of the ESL program, English as Second Language program, in the Department of Education and Children Services.
DR OZDOWSKI: Okay, thank you.
MR WALSH: It was changed yesterday.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you. South Australia is always full of surprises isn't it? Okay. Now, let us return maybe to Ms de Leo and to her coordination function. You said you had a coordination function under the previous government. Do you still carry that function?
MS DE LEO: No, it is not coordination of services, it is coordination of information.
DR OZDOWSKI: Information.
MS DE LEO: Now, we have moved to the Department of Justice so we are no longer a central coordinating agency so the Cabinet Office has that role and we are a member of an advisory group known as the Detention Centres Advisory Group and there are many other agencies including education and human services and SAPOL and emergency services represented on that group.
DR OZDOWSKI: Did any of you visit Woomera or any other detention centre?
MS DE LEO: No, we did not visit Woomera and we formed the view very early that unless we had something concrete to offer in terms of a service that because the government takes a whole of government approach that we would rely on our colleagues who are experts in the area to provide us with relevant information as we felt we had no direct business being there and adding to the burden of visitors to Woomera.
DR OZDOWSKI: Some time ago I understand your office was having direct contact with TPV people who were released from Woomera and you were providing some assistance to them. Do you still do it, do you still maintain daily contact with TPVs?
MS DE LEO: In the time that I have been there we have not provided any services to TPV holders. It may have occurred beforehand and Mr Mikos may be able to answer that. Our role with respect to TPVs has been to advise the government regarding their needs and those services have been provided by other agencies at cost to the state government.
DR OZDOWSKI: Could you perhaps outline briefly to us what from your point of view are the needs of TPVs at present?
MS DE LEO: Our main concern with respect to TPV holders was that they did not receive the full range of services that other refugees received. In particular they did not receive access to English language classes and perhaps Mr Walsh can comment further on that. Also they needed support with accommodation and the very first weeks of settlement and emergency financial assistance and support. The existing settlement agencies which are provided with federal funds to settle refugees do not have a mandate to provide such support to TPV holders. Therefore the state government decided, the previous state government decided that the state would take responsibility for up to $800 per person and a range of services have been provided by a range of government agencies including education, accommodating students wherever they can, who needed English classes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you very much, Ms de Leo. Now, let us move to education and maybe I will start asking and then will ask my Assistant Commissioners to follow with further questions but let us really cut close to the chase. Why are children from Woomera Detention Centre are not going to state government school in Woomera?
MR WALSH: I'm not sure if I can help you that much in the chase, Doctor. In August 2001 two DIMIA officials from Canberra visited the department and talked about the possibility of mothers and children moving out into the community and the children attending Woomera Area School. That was one visit. We minuted the visit. We sent the minutes back to Canberra. In the meeting the issue was raised of costs for the education of the children who would attend Woomera Area School and I added in the costs that are comparable in Adelaide for new arrival children. Maybe that frightened the officials.
DR OZDOWSKI: And get the kids a conversation.
MR WALSH: We didn't have any subsequent conversations so our department has awaited a response to those minutes.
DR OZDOWSKI: We have quite a lot of evidence indicating that schooling in detention centres, all detention centres, not only Woomera, is rather inadequate. Would it be your view that children would benefit if they would be allowed to go to the state government school?
MR WALSH: Yes, quite clearly and I think the two words detention and education are oxymorons in a sense, I mean they don't work together so putting the children - allowing the children to attend the area school would a big step forward. It wouldn't be the best solution because Woomera is a fairly isolated situation and we would have to load in all of the kind of support services that we are able to do in the big metropolitan areas but there are lots of children who are new arrivals who don't live in metropolitan areas and we do a very good job in those situations.
DR OZDOWSKI: So the best solution would be to have families somewhere in Adelaide, able to access your standardised ESL classes before they go to the mainstream.
MR WALSH: Our new arrivals program, yeah, where we have an enormous amount of resources put in specifically for the purpose of bridging the gap as quickly as possible so that the children can access the mainstream curriculum in mainstream schools within 12 months we hope.
DR OZDOWSKI: And the government would be willing to consider providing the appropriate funding if all else failed?
MR WALSH: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, let's stop may be for a moment on that funding formula because I don't understand how it works. Usually if a child migrates to Australia
MR WALSH: Yep.
DR OZDOWSKI: or even if there is a child of migrant with illegal entry coming here you would admit these children to schools without really any questions asked, isn't that so?
MR WALSH: Up until very recently we haven't looked at passports or visas - it's not been something that schools who enrol children would actually consider. Over the past year I would say 18 months that has started to change and increasingly a visa will be asked of parents when they enrol their children because increasingly that will impact on Commonwealth funding.
DR OZDOWSKI: So for example if a parent cannot produce proper visa what happens to the child?
MR WALSH: We've made a policy decision that TPV holders who are on temporary protection visas will be admitted, will be enrolled in our new arrivals program, okay, and up until very recently that - those costs have been borne completely by the State Government because that has been as you're aware, there would be - there has been no funding provided by Commonwealth.
DR OZDOWSKI: So you made that policy decision to admit them now?
MR WALSH: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes and you are bearing the costs of doing it?
MR WALSH: Yes, I think in the submission that we prepared it's currently nudging $2 million that the State Government has put into the program because we estimate about $8000 for a 12 month period for a new arrival student.
DR OZDOWSKI: So what's really the difference between the kids that are outside on TPVs and the kids who are in a detention centre?
MR WALSH: The kids who are outside are getting the full benefits of the South Australian Education service. I can't say what the children inside are getting because I've never been to Woomera.
DR OZDOWSKI: No, no, what I'm asking is why is the State drawing the financial line at the gates of Woomera?
MR WALSH: I think the State considers that the fence belongs to Canberra, I haven't had that discussion but that I would imagine would be seen as Commonwealth responsibility and it is the responsibility of the Australasian Management Company to look after - to provide the education services in there, that has never been questioned.
DR OZDOWSKI: So basically if I could repeat myself as I understand what you are saying is that clearly education in the normal state system would be beneficial to children who are in detention and subjected to a proper financial arrangement the State Government would be willing to admit students to state schools.
MR WALSH: That's right, that's currently what is happening but we would prefer for the Commonwealth to provide its funding portion and as from July the 1st I'm understanding that Mr Ruddock has agreed to do so. Yeah, so the new arrival grant is $4000, the cost to the State is $8000.
DR OZDOWSKI: Do I understand you correctly, did you say that from 1st of July Minister Ruddock agreed to send children from detention centres to state schools?
MR WALSH: He has agreed to provide the new arrival grant for those children which is an admission that they are being catered to - catered for in the same way as other new arrivals with permanent visas inside our system.
DR OZDOWSKI: But children who are in detentions or children who are on TPVs?
MR WALSH: Children who are outside, children who are released only.
DR OZDOWSKI: Okay, thank you very much. Mrs Sullivan?
MRS SULLIVAN: Our understanding from the hearings yesterday is that another line agency, the Human Services area has negotiated a memorandum of understanding in relation to child protection in South Australia and its relevance to children in detention centres. Do you see that as a model for education that you could conceivably have a memorandum of understanding between the Education Department and DIMIA in relation to the education of children in detention centres?
MR WALSH: It hasn't been discussed, I would rather not comment.
MRS SULLIVAN: I will come at the question another way.
MR WALSH: I've got big feet that might go in my big mouth.
MRS SULLIVAN: The now former Director General of Education in New South Wales, Ken Boston, is on the public record as saying he has offered to educate all the children in the New South Wales detention centres in the state schools in New South Wales. Has such an offer been made in South Australia?
MR WALSH: No, I don't think so that is not to say that it wouldn't be, but I don't think it has at this stage I don't think those, those discussions have taken place.
MRS SULLIVAN: Sorry, did you want to add something to that?
MR MIKOS: Yes, if I may, it would require government sanction and no such decision has been made and promulgating thus far and if I may add, the business of the education as well as other services because we haven't talked for instance about recreation opportunities. It has been brought to our attention in OMA, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, that it is not only education opportunities but also recreation opportunities which may be lacking in the detention environment at Woomera. But again, from what we have been able to glean, it is definitely federal land and federal responsibility and if the State cannot exercise any authority over the events and the course of events within the detention centres then it is questionable whether it should accept any responsibility for what happens there.
MRS SULLIVAN: Can I ask a question about training which is somewhat similar to your comment on new arrivals money for TPVs. Do they get access to any training opportunities given that TPVs tend to be of adolescent age?
MR WALSH: Yes, they would be - inside our new arrivals program they are provided with we hope the English language skills and all of the understandings about our education system and how that operates, the culture of education so that they can then progress into mainstream schooling and take advantage of what ever is going on there in relation to senior secondary pathways. So as I understand it there are some trainee-ships and there are some apprenticeships that have been taken up by TPVs who have gone through new arrivals into mainstream high school.
MRS SULLIVAN: So you're funding the remainder of their education and training from State funds apart from the new arrival language money?
MR WALSH: That's right, that's right so we then - they way that our education - our local management initiative works is that a student attracts funding and those students who progress from new arrivals programming to mainstream are seen as other mainstream students and they have particular ESL needs which attract supplementary funding.
MRS SULLIVAN: So theoretically if the students from Woomera were to turn up to the Woomera State School they would equally attract that funding?
MR WALSH: Yes, they would, yeah. The Woomera Area School isn't an R to 10 so the area schools as I understand it, that they would have and this is the same for all area schools, there's not much going on at the senior secondary level so there is a kind of tradition I believe of rural children coming into lighter regional centres for senior secondary schooling or coming down to Adelaide for boarding school and stuff like that.
MRS SULLIVAN: But in terms of the book-keeping they would just be another head to be counted for budget purposes.
MR WALSH: They would get the dollars, yes. The question then becomes what can a school which is in Woomera do with those dollars. Local schools in the city will buy ESL expertise it is a bit more difficult to do that maybe in country areas.
MRS SULLIVAN: Well, assuming one tailors the curriculum to the student intake that then becomes a matter of priority?
MR WALSH: Mm.
MRS SULLIVAN: One of the statements attributed to the Minister is that the nature of the children in detention centres is so diverse in educational terms that it is very difficult to mount an education program for them, they're of different ages, stages and ethnic background. Is that a statement you would agree with?
MR WALSH: I heard him make the comment on TV in relation I believe to Port Hedland or somewhere like that. All I can say is that we deal with exactly the same diversity on a daily basis in our new arrivals program. We have classes where the children are from twelve different cultural linguistic backgrounds. We don't need to have an age spread of 5 or 6 years because of the resources that we can provide but the students in the smaller new arrival primary centres would be of very diverse, very different starting points in relation to their own history of education, their own experience with English language, their own comfort their first language and their own in a sense learning speeds and thinking patterns. I mean diversity in our new arrivals program is mind boggling and this - the group of TPVs that we're talking about have no more diversity than they've been experiencing for the past 30 years.
MRS SULLIVAN: So you would be able to provide expertise on how to deal with this issue?
MR WALSH: Absolutely, yeah.
MRS SULLIVAN: And have you been asked to provide this expertise at the current schooling at Woomera?
MR WALSH: Negotiations are - have been taking place recently between - and I'm not sure how far those negotiations have gone, but I understand that ACM have made representation to the area school for a trial period to take fifteen younger children in detention, so on my understanding it is year 1,2 and 3 students, a group of five of each year level and have talked about - started to negotiate for them to be attending school at the area school. Now, those discussions - I'm not sure where there are but it went to a school council meeting in May and I'm not sure if anything has happened subsequent to that?
MRS SULLIVAN: So it would need the agreement of the school council before that could be implemented?
MR WALSH: Absolutely and other people as well, so I think the discussions have been - are being directed perhaps to a higher policy level.
MRS SULLIVAN: Have the teachers at Woomera ever approached your officers for assistance with catering with such a diverse student group?
MR WALSH: There principal of the area school talked to what I would call a district service provider, somebody who is based in Renmark in the Riverland who has ESL responsibility for a whole large part of South Australia, the north and the west and he talked to her about the potential of ESL support from her point of view if this trial went ahead.
MRS SULLIVAN: I was thinking more of the current situation, have they sought advice on how to enhance the opportunities for children within the school, in the detention centre?
MR WALSH: No.
MRS SULLIVAN: And my last question, we've heard quite a bit in the last 2 days about alienation of adolescents from the education provision within the centre. Have you got any comment on how one deals with that either within a centre or within mainstream schooling because the issue seems to be that adolescents within the centre are not seeing the schooling provided there as an attractive option?
MR WALSH: It is an issue, detention is I would imagine, and I think there is enough experience now and enough voices here to tell you that detention is a deterrent to education and the fact that there is uncertainty amongst the children about their future is causing them and their manifestations in school - causing some issues for their educators. I think this particular group have perhaps caused the new arrivals program which has dealt with many waves of migrants and refugees, it's caused them the most concern because of the fears that the students themselves have and there are psychological issues as a result of being in detention and as a result of being in limbo because of their visa status.
DR OZDOWSKI: Could you give examples of how that impacted on classes last year?
MR WALSH: Yeah, it's - there is a reported from my coordinators who co-ordinate the new arrivals program particularly at the secondary level. At the primary level there is much less concern because - I don't know but perhaps the students themselves, at an adolescent level are more reflective of their own state and their own status in schooling in South Australia. So there are cases of non-participation which is very unusual for new arrivals. Our new arrival program is one of those places where generally joy is paramount because students are arriving in Australia and very quickly they work out that this is a fantastic place and the schooling system is a wonderful opportunity for them and they grab it. This hasn't been the case totally with the TPVs coming down from Woomera. Now, I have to ask the question why that is and I can only put two and two together and think that it is to do with their experiences in Woomera and their status as temporaries in our society.
DR OZDOWSKI: Professor Thomas?
PROF THOMAS: Yes, I have a question for Mrs Leo please. What are their reactions reveals of the various ethnic communities to the detention centre that you are aware of?
MS DE LEO: They're quite mixed, some are very supportive others are perhaps influenced by reports in the media so I couldn't say that there was one consistent view across communities. Certainly there are many communities that are very committed and give their time to assisting new arrivals to settle in the community. They receive new arrivals in their own home, seek furniture for them and provide a great deal of assistance and support particularly to those who are from their own cultural group but not all communities are as supportive as that.
PROF THOMAS: Do you have a large community, you know, lots of them of the Afghan community and the Iraqi community in South Australia?
MS DE LEO: There is an Afghan community and also an Iraqi community, I wouldn't say that it was large, the numbers are relatively small and the people who are currently in Woomera and the cultures and countries from which they come would be what we would consider from the smaller and new and emerging communities who need a great deal of support. Some of the communities have formed together and developed - for example the Middle Eastern communities council so people from the Middle East are able to form part of a larger group so that they can support each other and start to build the capacity to develop a structure to support each other and to support new arrivals and of course we support that through our programs in terms of grants through the Premier's Multicultural Grant Scheme to assist communities and we work with school communities as well to provide information and advice.
PROF THOMAS: So what information do you have about the foster care situation for the unaccompanied minors from detention centres?
MS DE LEO: Only the information that is received second-hand from the Department of Human Services.
MR MIKOS: Yes, there is a small - our information tells us there is a small number of family units that may be prepared and have been cleared by our colleagues in the Human Service portfolio as suitable potential foster home environments for the legal minors. However, I would like to emphasise again the point that Mr de Leo has just made about the numbers. Your Commission is based in Sydney in New South Wales so you may be accustomed to having multiple tens of thousands of individuals in every - immigrant or ethnic community. In our State it is not the case and in particular those communities that arrived from Afghanistan but also to an extent from Iraq are quite small.
So it can give us several hundred refugees with permanent residence status and possibly another few hundred per each of the two as far as TPV holders are concerned which means that there are very significant pressures on our colleagues in human services and education and elsewhere as far as service provision is concerned and specifically to deal with your question about foster - families and foster home environments, of course the pool of people in families on which one can call for assistance is limited too, yeah.
DR OZDOWSKI: Well, thank you very much for your submissions and thank you very much for your oral evidence. If you would like to ask anything please ask also if we have some further questions in our report writing for us we may need to knock on your doors again, so Ms Joy De Leo and Mr Janusz Mikos, Mr John Walsh, thank you very much for being here.
MR WALSH: Thank you.
MS DE LEO: Thank you.
MR MIKOS: Thank you.
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes, thank you. Now, I would like to ask our next witness. It is Ms Inese Petersons please.
MS PETERSONS: Where would you like me to sit?
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes, please, please, sit wherever it is convenient for you. Thank you very much. To start with could I ask you to take an oath or affirmation?
MS PETERSONS: Yes.
MS
INESE PETERSONS, sworn [10.15am]
Former Woomera Teacher
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, could I ask you to state your name, address, qualifications and the capacity in which you are appearing here for the records?
MS PETERSONS: Okay. My name is Inese Petersons, I live at [address removed]. I am a registered teacher in South Australia and I am a former education officer from the Woomera Detention Centre. I was there in the year 2001 from May to August.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you for your submission and also thank you for your statutory declaration which further explained a range of issues. Please do not mention the names of detainees because we are interested in protecting their privacy as much as possible. Now, I understand is you worked for three months as a teacher in Woomera and you are one of many and you would be surprised how many people who worked in the detention centres left under considerable stress. Could I ask you perhaps to say a few words about the classes, the type of education you were providing over there?
MS PETERSONS: There is an assumption that education was not provided for people in specifically in Woomera. This is not true, we did in fact attempt to provide English classes, maths classes, cultural studies classes but the biggest drawback to any education or educational program taking place in Woomera is probably about three-fold. One of course, is the psychological state of the detainees or particularly the children. Secondly, there is an incredible lack of resources both material and human to be able to fulfil this capacity of teaching English or anything to any child in the centre and thirdly, it is where the education is taking place.
My first preference of course it would be in their best interests to see them outside of the centre or going to the local school or if not at least going to St Michael's which is appropriately staffed and resourced. The second option would be to have a purpose-built school within the centre. This was, at one stage, presented as an option. The teaching staff did in fact look into it. I was asked to ring the Department of Education and ask them what the staffing ratios were for students, which I did. We submitted our recommendations and that was the last that we heard of it. There was no building taking place.
The third option that I would prefer, and I think most of the teachers who were on staff would have preferred, was to have at least one of the compounds that was least used to be turned into an educational facility so that all of the children and teenagers could actually leave their compounds and go to a common compound for an education system based on as formal a system that we could possibly provide for them. Basically, I think it just all does not happen because of lack of teachers and lack of resources. You have, in my declaration there, the number of teachers that were there.
At one stage we were operating with two teachers for three weeks and it was just impossible. Had it not been for the detainee teachers and people who came forward to help, there would not have been an education program. We had a timetable which we tried to address fairly for all the people who required education and basically we had one hour contact time per group per day.
DR OZDOWSKI: I will ask Mrs Sullivan in a moment to ask more about the curriculum because she is an education expert and she is much better at asking this kind of questions but could you tell me you were regarded - you were a teacher, you were employed as a teacher?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, I was employed as an education officer.
DR OZDOWSKI: Officer, and you were wearing one of these ACM uniforms?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, everyone was required to wear the standard ACM uniform.
DR OZDOWSKI: So how did the children perceive you wearing that uniform?
MS PETERSONS: Well, initially we were of course viewed as a ACM employee and also either a guard or a welfare officer or whomever, there were no particular distinguishing characteristics between the guards or ourselves or the education staff.
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes?
MS PETERSONS: Of course, once they became accustomed to seeing us they recognised that we were, in fact, teachers and so our role became slightly different.
DR OZDOWSKI: Would it have been easier to carry out your role if you weren't wearing such a uniform?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, assuredly because it - you know, the connotation of ACM and the practices are then sort of imbued in you because you are wearing the uniform.
DR OZDOWSKI: What about the relationship between you and the management? If you are all in uniforms who is really in charge when it comes to school?
MS PETERSONS: Well, we were under the direction of the programs manager who then, of course, had their hierarchy system above them and so we reported basically and were given directions through the programs manager.
DR OZDOWSKI: I see, and did the programs manager have educational qualifications?
MS PETERSONS: Not to the best of my knowledge. I believe that this person came from the correctional services system. To the best of my knowledge they did not have educational qualifications in the sense that they were not a registered or a degreed teacher.
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, two more things
MS LESNIE: Sorry, could I just follow up on that question? Did the programs manager ever attempt to control what you did and did not teach and the hours that you taught?
MS PETERSONS: No, the hours that we taught were fairly well left to our own devices. The education staff had a staff meeting on a very regular basis to organise timetables because of the fluctuation in numbers and changing situation the timetable practically was revised every week to accommodate either more teachers, less teachers, more students, less students and changes in living arrangements. They certainly did direct us at times to just drop whatever we were doing and go and do something else so continuity of
MS LESNIE: What, for example, what else were you asked to do?
MS PETERSONS: Well, in the middle of setting up a program for the unaccompanied minors and teenagers that I saw as a focus group, I was told to just stop that because that was not within our brief and to go over to one of the other compounds and set up an education system or an education program. So I had to then drop what I was doing and go to another compound and spend a few days there finding out, you know, the amount of people who were interested in education, what particular group they were and you know the relevant details. Then having actually established that within two weeks those particular group of people went through their processing and were all then dispersed into various different compounds. So
DR OZDOWSKI: So one could conclude that where that school was not operating because some other task or some other things were happening?
MS PETERSONS: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Have you finished?
MS LESNIE: Yes, thank you.
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, just two more things which in a way relate to comparisons with normal schools. In normal schools you would strive to involve parents, you would have a teacher and parents meeting and so on. What - how did it happen then at Woomera?
MS PETERSONS: At one stage I do believe that we attempted to have what we call an open day for teachers and for parents to come to various classrooms and talk to the various teachers. I am sorry, my memory now is blankish because I can't remember why it didn't go ahead, either some - for some reason either management didn't approve it or it didn't go ahead or alternatively there was a riot or some disturbance within the compound and it didn't happen. We certainly made that attempt. It was very difficult again to involve parents because the whole sort of atmosphere surrounding education - it wasn't promoted, put it this way, by the centre itself. Education always seemed to be sort of the lack lustre cousin of activities and there was no particular promotion of education per se. I think they were considered or we were told quite frequently that they were only here on a temporary measure and therefore to set up some sort of a comprehensive program was not the right thing to do or the ideal thing to do.
DR OZDOWSKI: Were you told to help to deliver holding pattern so basically
MS PETERSONS: Yes, yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes?
MS PETERSONS: I mean, I think somewhere in one of my submissions I said the old thought of we are only here to keep you alive and not fatten you was the sort of overarching feeling that you got, that basically the standard said that we must provide education therefore we will provide a token effort towards education and say that we have, in fact, fulfilled our obligations.
DR OZDOWSKI: So basically there was no regular contact with parents?
MS PETERSONS: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: No. Now, last question, records of achievement. Usually schools issue some kind of certificates and so on. Did you
MS PETERSONS: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: You didn't issue anything?
MS PETERSONS: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: No, in a way, when the kids were leaving Woomera to be released did they get at least some of the work which they did at school so
MS PETERSONS: No, no.
DR OZDOWSKI: Nothing?
MS PETERSONS: No, the only consumables that the children were given as a rule were exercise books and pencils and rulers and things for writing or alternatively what we call in the education system, black line masters which are photocopies of work examples that you give to them. So we didn't keep specific records of achievement of work because of just the incredible fluctuation of numbers and the changing numbers. Really, there is no continuity of learning or an established formal classroom teaching that - so that you could establish records. I mean, I sort of kept records in my head so I could say: Well, one particular student needed a little bit more of this or a little bit more of that. With one hour per day per group
DR OZDOWSKI: One hour per day per group?
MS PETERSONS: it is very difficult to try to keep those sort of records. I mean, I could have seen perhaps over 3 or 400 people per day.
DR OZDOWSKI: So I would ask you, there were no assessments made?
MS PETERSONS: To the best of my knowledge there was never any entry assessments made and certainly no exit assessments made and the longer they remained in detention the less likely they were to attend classes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Why is that so?
MS PETERSONS: I think just because they realised it was a pointless exercise that many of them would be there for a long time and so they would go into a despondent state of affairs or very depressed and think: What is the use? Particularly the teenagers, I found them to be a particularly vulnerable group, I think socially and emotionally, if they were to be granted Temporary Protection Visas because they were at that crucial time in their lives where, you know, socialising becomes very important, peer pressure is important, you know, making plans about their future is important.
So I approached who we considered to be our co-ordinator in the teaching area and asked if it would be feasible to set up some sort of a program for the unaccompanied minors and teenagers and made them my focus group. I did attempt to have the same thing happening in each compound so that if they moved from one to the other then they could sort of slot in and they wouldn't miss too much of their learning. Again, particularly the unaccompanied minors who were again a very vulnerable group, they were - because they had no supervision or parental supervision if there was a parent who would encourage a child to come to school they were not afforded that sort of responsibility or attention.
So we had problems with getting unaccompanied minors to classes. We had problems with a lot of the teenage boys particularly. So I focussed on this particular group.
DR OZDOWSKI: Could you perhaps
MS LESNIE: If I could just follow up one thing that you said
MS PETERSONS: Sorry, yes.
MS LESNIE: One thing that you said that there was no entry assessments when they came in?
MS PETERSONS: Not to the best of my knowledge.
MS LESNIE: So how did you divide up different groups, you said different groups for different times?
MS PETERSONS: We tried age groups for the children, then we discovered, of course, the disparity of learning experiences was so enormous that the - in the end I think that the best way that we could approach it was to talk to the child and see what their English language acquisition was like and also whether or not they were literate in their own language. Then on that basis, we organised two separate classes or we attempted to organise two separate classes, one for the English speaking and understanding and then we would have another class where we would have an interpreter in the particular language group that they were in to act as an intermediary teacher. As I said, if it hadn't been for the detainee teachers, as we called them, assistant teachers, there would not have been a program at all. It is - at one stage there were two teachers, as I said, for three weeks, for 1500 people.
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, Ms Sullivan?
MRS SULLIVAN: How were you recruited?
MS PETERSONS: I heard of this particular position through a friend of mine and I sent a fax to the detention centre and just attached my resume and then I heard back from them that they were interested. We organised a two way telephone conversation and I had a telephone interview with the programs manager, the activities manager and the social welfare manager. They asked me various questions, then about two or three weeks after that after they had conducted their police clearance on me I was offered a three month position at the centre.
MRS SULLIVAN: Was that interview much different from other teaching position interviews that you have had in your career?
MS PETERSONS: Well, as a rule we don't have teacher interviews.
MRS SULLIVAN: The initial one that you had?
MS PETERSONS: Well, as a teacher in South Australia you just have a degree and you put in your resume and your various qualifications to the Department and then the Department rings you with a proposal for a job. So you don't actually go through a formal interview process as such.
MRS SULLIVAN: I noticed in your statement that you said at the time that you were there the majority of teachers were not registered.
MS PETERSONS: The only teachers that were registered during that period of time were myself and another colleague and to the best of my knowledge the other three teachers were not registered teachers in South Australia, I believe. I am not sure of their particular qualifications but I believe that they do - they did come from an educational background. So they were not just the average person off the street.
MRS SULLIVAN: Right?
MS PETERSONS: The ACM does in fact have quite a comprehensive sort of job description and person description for the teaching staff but I believe that quite often it is a matter of taking who applies because not very many people want to go and relocate themselves to an area such as Woomera for a period of six weeks because most contracts are six week contracts.
MRS SULLIVAN: So the position description did not stipulate that you should be registered in South Australia?
MS PETERSONS: I think it said that you had to be a registered teacher but I am not sure if it says South Australia. I can't quite remember that but certainly we were the only two who were and who had any curriculum knowledge per se.
MRS SULLIVAN: Right. What is your understanding of the fact that they are six week contracts?
MS PETERSONS: It is my belief that the six week contracts are based on two principles, one that probably about after about six weeks most people have had enough and want to leave and the other one is that it is a matter of funding that if the numbers in the detention centre fluctuate they are using the ratio, I believe, of 300 detainees to one teacher and if the numbers drop below the 300 band mark, as they call them, then there isn't - they have a perceived understanding that they don't need another teacher so, because of the fluctuation of numbers, you might find in six weeks that you have dropped 2 or 300 so you don't basically need that teacher.
MRS SULLIVAN: So what is the class/teacher ratio in state schools in South Australia?
MS PETERSONS: 25 to 1 or minimum 28 to 1 maximum and in high schools it is about 15 and 18 to 1. So during the period of time that I was there we should have had to have at least, at least, ten teachers just for the children.
MRS SULLIVAN: The maximum that you experienced was five?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, and during that period of time when we actually had five, one of the teachers was involved in planning the pilot community scheme so, in fact, we only ever had four teachers that were operational.
MRS SULLIVAN: Were there any other differences in conditions that you can recall between your conditions in that schooling situation and how you would have had conditions in a mainstream school?
MS PETERSONS: How many hours have you got?
MRS SULLIVAN: Dot points will be fine?
MS PETERSONS: Well, first of all class sizes, amenities, resources. Resources were a huge problem. We had a small amount of basically primary school text books and resources in the staff room. I came back to Adelaide for a while and took all of my statements when I went through, statements and profiles up for all curriculum areas. I spent a great deal of time after work photocopying planning and programming profiles, all the ESL materials that I could find at the Woomera library and putting those in as masters for the staff to look at so that they had a little bit more idea. So resources, particularly in the early years ESL category area were almost non-existent.
Just really lack of staff, lack of staff, lack of resources, lack of appropriate classrooms, lack of a proper area to teach people in. There was always the complaint that: We can't provide much more material because the next time they riot it will all get burnt and then we will just have to replace it. I mean, logic would then say to you, you know, then move the teaching area somewhere else that they can't have access to so that you don't lose all of the resources.
MRS SULLIVAN: Could I just ask about resources? Did you have a budget?
MS PETERSONS: I assume we had a budget.
MRS SULLIVAN: You weren't aware of what it was?
MS PETERSONS: I wasn't aware of what it was, no, there were - quite frequently there were suggestions made that we had to be more careful with our budgeting and when we handed out an exercise book we had to record it to make sure that, you know, a student didn't get three exercise books in a month and - I mean, for people who come from areas that these particular people come from, I mean, the fact that they actually have the luxury of a piece of paper and a pencil, you know, they become like squirrels. They sort of hoard them. So yes, we did go through quite a few consumables but, I mean, it is only paper.
MRS SULLIVAN: So the manager you mentioned before would have controlled the budget?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, I think it either went through that or the - there was a budgeting clerk that we used to talk to who used to occasionally approach us and say: well, what more do you need? During July I spent a considerable amount of time going through ESL documents, Tesol documents, Cambridge documents and various big books and resources put together a comprehensive list. I was told that I had X amount of dollars to look at. I looked at software, I looked at bi-lingual, tri-lingual, you know and papers and books and materials and gave them a list and said
MRS SULLIVAN: Were you ever knocked back when you requested resources?
MS PETERSONS: No, they never actually knocked you back but very rarely did they appear, let us put it that way.
MR HUNYOR: Ms PETERSONS, can I just ask you one question?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, sorry.
MR HUNYOR: Are you saying that there was basically no curriculum at the time you arrived in May 2001?
MS PETERSONS: Yes.
MR HUNYOR: For the centre that had been operating for almost 18 months?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, yes. We were not ever given any instructions that we specifically had to teach any curriculum subjects. It was basically left, I think, to the discretion of the teaching staff as to what was specifically given as an education program. Now, given again, as I said, resources, contact time per group, given the training of the people who were presenting the education program, I think we very quickly realised that - and also the fluctuation in numbers in the movements and the psychological state of our students per se, just was not conducive to learning and basically if we could provide them with basic English and basic sort of cultural studies, basic maths, basic computing and that was probably about as much as we would be able to give given the circumstances, resources and the way that the education program and classes were set up.
MRS SULLIVAN: You made an earlier comment about the standards that ACM have. Were you provided with a set of standards with relation to education?
MS PETERSONS: I vaguely remember we were presented with a big document which basically said: Welcome to Woomera, and had various things in it. We were given protocols, we were given codes of conduct, we were given various pamphlets and various little booklets in regard to what was supposed to be happening.
MRS SULLIVAN: Is this specifically in relation to education?
MS PETERSONS: There is a document that I was given which contains, supposedly, ESL and Unaccompanied Minors Programs that said: this is what we are doing, but I never, in fact, experienced that to be what was being delivered.
MRS SULLIVAN: So it was not a curriculum document?
MS PETERSONS: No, never. We were never given any curriculum documents, not to the best of my knowledge, I never saw one. One of my colleagues who is here who will speak later, he may have.
MRS SULLIVAN: So this statement you are referring to, it was more a report on what was being implemented?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, or had been.
MRS SULLIVAN: Had been?
MS PETERSONS: Quite frequently, if something happened in the activities or in the craft area someone will say: I will write a report on that, we will benchmark that and put into a report so that, you know, we will always have these reports on what is supposed to be happening and what has happened, but whether it happens in reality or is ever delivered are two entirely different things and I think there is very much this over glossing of what we do and what we would like to do or what we can do but what actually happens is an entirely different picture.
MRS SULLIVAN: In this timetable you listed in you declaration?
MS PETERSONS: Yes.
MRS SULLIVAN: You mention that on one day of the week you gave three hours of your time to train assistant teachers?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, Friday mornings we usually met with all of the assistant teaching staff and went through induction packages with them. If they had to be inducted, I guess, and then basically deal with the mandatory notification and conduct and practice and what you could and couldn't do.
MRS SULLIVAN: So did they pay them for this role?
MS PETERSONS: They came under the points system as such.
DR OZDOWSKI: Did it also mean that on Friday there were no classes?
MS PETERSONS: Friday morning there certainly wasn't any classes.
DR OZDOWSKI: So we are talking about a four day school week really?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, four and a half. I and some of my colleagues then did actually go back on the Friday afternoon and take some classes if you will see there that I went and did the team classes.
DR OZDOWSKI: Sure?
MS PETERSONS: Friday was optional basically because that is one of their holy days, rest days, so those people who were Muslims, whether they chose to come or not was an issue but the teams class that I had were Mandaeans and they were quite happy to have the Friday class.
DR OZDOWSKI: My final question is there's an issue about how you decided what to teach, but was there any discussion with the students, either adult or young people, about what they wanted to learn?
MS PETERSONS: Basically they had always indicated to me three things. One, that they definitely wanted to be taught by an English teacher even though their own language classes or assistant teachers took classes, they always tried to get into a class that had a teacher in it because they believed that their chances of learning English would be better. The second thing that they always said that they wanted was they wanted to learn about Australia and what happens in Australia and what can they do in Australia and things in regard to, I suppose, life skills of assimilating and just learning how to live in Australian society. This was always a fairly touchy point with the management because there was this perception that we couldn't really - we shouldn't tell them anything until they are out because in case they escape they might - you know, the usual sort of story. So there was a fairly blanket coverage over what we were allowed to. Maps were definitely out. We could not ever, you know
MRS SULLIVAN: Could not ever find McDonalds and where they were.
MS PETERSONS: Because, you know, 3 years ago or something, some very clever person put together a compass from something or other and they got out and they got as far as such, you know, so there was always this sort of over-arching belief that if you tell them anything about Australian culture and what happens on the outside that they will all break out. Well, maybe that is true, we have seen that happening lately, but certainly when I was there, there was no need for that sort of particular secrecy and cloak-and-dagger stuff. I mean, I admit quite freely here that I took it upon myself to try to give the teenagers and the UAMs in particular some idea of what Australian life would be like for them so I did take in various articles on your rights from, you know, zero to 18, what you are allowed to do, what you are not allowed to do.
I spoke a great deal about the Australian law in regard to equal opportunity, freedom of speech, you know, that men and women had equal right under the law and what girls could do and they couldn't do and tried to explain to them that whilst we appreciated and understood that they had traditions and customs, that in Australia perhaps some of those things they would have to learn to modify or whatever. I also endeavoured to teach them a bit of Australian slang which was a huge mystery to them but they certainly learned a few words and used them prolifically. I'm very proud of that.
MRS SULLIVAN: Sorry, there was a third one, you said there were three things.
MS PETERSONS: Yes, they wanted to learn formal English so that they could in fact write their various applications and whatever to DIMIA properly so that their chances would be increased of receiving a better viewing in the Tribunal. Of course this again was a no-no area. We were not allowed to
DR OZDOWSKI: So what, they were able to use computers, yes, to write letters?
MS PETERSONS: They did have some computers. When I arrived we had, I think, about eight computers only in one compound.
DR OZDOWSKI: And a printer?
MS PETERSONS: I'm not sure about the printer. You will have to ask my colleague, he had more to do with the IT than I did, but that was run purely by assistant teachers. We didn't have time for computing and when I was leaving they were beginning to set up some more computers in two other compounds. In total there wouldn't have been more than, I think, 22 computers for 1500 people.
DR OZDOWSKI: Professor Thomas?
PROF THOMAS: Apart from the description of the teenagers, did you observe any differences in the psychological state of behaviour of different age groups, from 5 - say from 5 to 12?
MS PETERSONS: Yes, we found that the 5 to 12 age group tended to fall into two categories, either extremely hyperactive boys to very withdrawn girls and we found that they were initially very keen again to come to classes. There wasn't a great deal of parental supervision, particularly not of the boys, and for more pronounced dysfunctional behaviour we found that that seemed to be more prevalent in the boys than the girls. We in fact identified three or four children whom we thought should really have had some specialist help. I mean, I've never had any experience with trauma victims but certainly this behaviour was beyond any sort of even just, you know, dysfunctional behaviour that I had observed.
PROF THOMAS: Did the girls participate equally in all activities?
MS PETERSONS: No, the girls didn't like being with the boys, of course, because of cultural customs. We did in fact organise all of our what I would call lower primary classes to be mixed classes so that they would understand that once - or get used to the idea that once they came out in the community they would be in mixed classes in the primary school and that the sooner they were introduced to that type of formal mixed schooling the better for them. So we attempted to have them in mixed classes. The girls certainly were not very excited about going to physical education. The boys certainly were. The sooner they could get out of the classroom and play soccer or just run around they were happy about that but that's fairly typical, I think, of children wherever.
Certainly the girls, the young girls, were withdrawn, the young boys were very hyperactive. Then when we got into the teen group the boys were very, well, typical teenage boys, again very withdrawn, trying to be very macho and, you know: I'm not going to come to class and no one is going to tell me. The girls were always very keen to come particularly so I would say that in post release it would be probably the girls that would do much better in schools than boys would.
PROF THOMAS: Did you observe any learning difficulties?
MS PETERSONS: Well, I think they all had learning difficulties.
PROF THOMAS: Disabilities, I think.
MS PETERSONS: No, disabilities, no, we - apart from what I called the particularly dysfunctional three or four boys there was a young lad who was in a wheelchair and he very, very rarely came to classes because there was no wheelchair access to any of the classrooms and it was very difficult to get around the compounds because most of the compounds had dirt flooring or, you know, just laid dirt, no concrete, so the wheelchair access was quite difficult. He came to one of my classes on about half a dozen occasions and we had to actually manhandle him up the stairs, but there was no provision made to the best of my knowledge for people who had disabilities in that regard.
I know that some of the children that I had needed glasses and I referred them on for having their eyes checked and I had a young lad in one of my classes who had a very bad ear infection and nothing came of that until it was beyond the point of being helped by Panadol and he eventually, I believe, went to the hospital. He is currently in Adelaide and he is now experiencing deafness in that ear. I see him on occasion and he has said that due to the ear infection that he had in Woomera and the fact that it wasn't taken care of properly or expediently that he in fact is now deaf in one ear and those children that I referred for glasses to the best of my knowledge were never taken to a specialist or an optometrist, an optician, and certainly didn't get glasses.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you. Final question from me. Why did you decide not to continue at Woomera?
MS PETERSONS: Well, I think
DR OZDOWSKI: I know it is a bit personal.
MS PETERSONS: Well, it is totally a separate issue to what I'm talking about. I mean, I don't mind saying I suffered some severe angina problems and had to return to Adelaide for medical attention.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you very much. I must say the school you describe is a highly unusual school at least from my point of view because it is operating from time to time as having one group per 4½ days a week with no curriculum, with no parent contact, with no assessment, with limited resources, an unknown budget, with teachers in uniform. I must say I never seen such a school before.
MS PETERSONS: Neither have I.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you very much.
MS PETERSONS: Can I just say one thing, please, in conclusion. I don't think that an education program is impossible in detention. With enough resources and enough teachers and a willingness on the part of whoever is providing the service to instigate that, I think it is possible. Certainly they are keen to learn, there is no doubt about that. I'm unhappy that our own Department can't in fact intervene because it is not a departmental school but certainly I would like to see more liaison between the provider and the Education Department, but I don't think it is impossible, I really don't, and certainly the teachers who were there were more than willing, more than dedicated and would have, you know, given 12, 15 hours a day given the right resources and the right support.
DR OZDOWSKI: Mrs PETERSONS, thank you for your submission, for your statutory declaration and everything.
MS PETERSONS: Thank you.
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, we will have a 15-minute break.
MORNING TEA [10.55am]
RESUMED [11.07am]
DR OZDOWSKI: Could I ask Dr Sarah Mares and John Jureidini to come forward, please? Please take a seat, yes. Could I ask you to take an oath or affirmation, please?
DR SARAH MARES,
affirmed [11.08am]
DR JON JUREIDINI, affirmed
Department of Psychological Medicine, Women's and Children's Hospital
DR OZDOWSKI: Now, I would like to ask you to give your names, addresses, qualifications and the capacity in which you are appearing for the record.
DR JUREIDINI: My name is John Jureidini. I'm a child psychiatrist, the head of the Department of Psychological Medicine at the Women's and Children's Hospital. I have MBBS medical qualifications, Fellowship of the College of Psychiatrists and a PhD from Flinders University.
DR OZDOWSKI: You are in private capacity here?
DR JUREIDINI: Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI: You are not representing an organisation?
DR JUREIDINI: No.
DR OZDOWSKI: Thank you.
DR MARES: My name is Sa