Labor has introduced a bill that would allow drugs and mobile phones to be confiscated from non-citizens in immigration detention, despite opposing a phone ban when attempted by Peter Dutton in 2020.
The Albanese government is proposing greater safeguards than the Coalition’s attempts to ban phones, but the move has already outraged the Greens and legal advocates who warn it will make it harder to hold authorities accountable for conditions in detention.
On Thursday the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, introduced the prohibiting items in detention bill, alleging that “there have been incidents of criminals in detention facilities using encrypted messaging services to run drug trafficking and other organised crime activities”.
The bill boosts the Australian Border Force’s powers to search for drugs, following a recommendation from the Australian Human Rights Commission and pleas from the ABF commissioner, Michael Outram, to help combat addiction and violence.
The bill allows the minister to write regulations prohibiting items in detention if they are “satisfied that the thing is unlawful to possess in place or places in Australia or if the thing would pose a risk to the health, safety or security of a person in the facility or the order of the facility”, Burke said.
He continued that to exercise search powers and seize otherwise lawful items, the officer “must first believe that such search or seizure is necessary to prevent or lessen a risk” to the health, safety or security of people, or good order of the facility.
The bill includes safeguards that if a communication device is confiscated, detainees may be given “alternative means of communication” to obtain legal advice, contact family and friends, or communicate on political matters. Burke said this would include an “alternative device until such time as their device is returned”.
Burke said the bill “does not establish a blanket prohibition against possession or use of mobile phones in immigration detention” and devices would only be confiscated “when they are being used in a way” that would pose a risk.
The Coalition attempted to pass a similar ban in the two previous parliaments, but its first bill lapsed at the 2019 election and the second one failed to pass in October 2020 when Jacqui Lambie combined with Labor and other crossbenchers to oppose it.
The Coalition bill would have allowed a total ban on mobile phones, resulting in detainees being forced to use alternatives such as landlines, the internet, fax machines or the post to communicate from detention.
Jana Favero, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre deputy chief executive, said it was “outrageous” the bill was being introduced in the final parliamentary fortnight, warning it would “damage people’s mental health, their right to privacy and their basic human right to have access to support and to contact family members”.
Josephine Langbien, an associate legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre, said Labor had “shamefully revived a harsh and unjust Morrison-era bill to give sweeping … powers to the minister to ban almost any item in detention, including mobile phones – which are a lifeline for people in immigration detention”.
“The Albanese government is using the final parliamentary sitting days of the year, and the cover of its rushed expansion of the offshore detention regime, to quietly extinguish one of the few ways that people in detention can seek accountability for their treatment,” she said.
“These laws will worsen conditions in detention and make it easier for abuse to thrive behind closed doors.”
The Greens immigration spokesperson, David Shoebridge, said the reintroduction of “tweaked Dutton-era legislation that Labor voted against four years ago says everything you need to know about the Albanese government”.
“There are four separate anti-immigration attacks from Labor before parliament right now: the phone ban bill, the detention and third country deportation bill, a bill to remove rights for administrative law challenges, and the now-stalled travel ban and deportation bill from March.”
Earlier, Burke appeared to blame the Coalition for conditions in detention, noting that “over recent years asylum seekers have been replaced in detention centres by individuals who have had their visas cancelled on character grounds, who often have serious criminal histories”.
“About 90% of the current caseload hold a criminal conviction, including violence and drug-related crimes.”
In September 2023 Guardian Australia revealed the Coalition was warned that sending “prison hardened detainees” into detention and may breach the government’s duty of care to other detainees including asylum seekers.
