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CALLING FOR A ROYAL COMMISSION

Behrouz Boochani
Journalist, Human Rights Defender, Writer and Film Producer 

The people of Australia have this right to know what the government – and of course, I’m talking about both parties – have done in offshore and onshore [detention centres. Forty people have been killed on Manus Island and Nauru. Hundreds of people have been damaged.

Nick McKimm
Greens Senator & Home Affairs Spokesperson

The Greens have been calling for a royal commission into immigration detention, both offshore and onshore, for many years. It is critical that we expose the corruption, and it is critical that we expose the rampant human rights abuses that have lead Australia from an international position of being seen as one of the great defenders of human rights around the world, to an utter pariah in terms of how we treat refugees

Kylea Tink
Independent MP

The latest revelations regarding Home Affairs, PNG and Nauru politicians and offshore processing companies are yet further proof that nothing less than a Royal Commission will get to the bottom of the sorry saga that has been offshore detention

Nick McKimm
Greens Senator & Home Affairs Spokesperson

This stinks to high heaven. There needs to be a full, comprehensive inquiry with appropriate powers into the whole immigration detention regime including this scandal. We have consistently called for a Royal Commission into immigration detention and the Prime Minister needs to put in place a Royal Commission into this scandal now.

Zali Steggall
Independent MP

I believe there should be a royal commission into offshore detention so that this whole policy area can be publicly examined

Dr Michael Dudley
Senior consultant in psychiatry, Prince of Wales Hospital
conjoint senior lecturer in psychiatry, UNSW

A Royal Commission is crucial for naming the torture, cruelty, shocking harms and costs of privatised immigration detention, for destroying its social licence, and for decommissioning the policy’s racist, fear-mongering and stigmatising practices

Sr Jane Keogh

I am desperately upset. I have long known and advocated to bring the Moresby very ill guys to Australia for needed mental health treatment. But, Labor supports a financial deal with the devil to leave them there forever. I know several who could have been going to Canada but were too mentally unwell to go through the application process let alone the interview. One young man, A, who was positive, caring and intelligent the twice I visited PNG, met me at the airport, organised my accommodation, looked after me. He has been unable to communicate with me for over 18 months and I heard he just sits on his bed in despair. Last year he became so unwell he ran naked through the streets and twice physically tried to get on a plane to leave. Today I had another friend visit him and now this friend is extremely upset seeing him sitting in one spot and talking gibberish. I believe there are at least two other in similar conditions. Often very dosed up on medication. Not making sense, unable to think, reason, act as human beings. This is what Australia is doing to real human innocent, vulnerable, intelligent, skilled young men. Reducing them to a state where intelligence and humanity is lost. I will never forget or forgive Labor for doing this. Every Labor politician has been given the facts, many times. When Penny Wong was last in PNG church authorities told us that she made it clear she thinks the men are ok to stay in PNG. Where is Australia's lost soul? Where is decency? Friends, every one of us must keep speaking up exposing this inhumanity. We must not give up, but rather shout more loudly whether our voices fall on deaf ears or not. Otherwise our silence is support for evil immoral torture and neglect and we allow Australia to grow more inhumane day by day.
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