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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4335 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I would like to summarise the situation of the Al'Abaddi family, as per a recent report by DOCS. In this family, there are the parents, two teenage boys and a younger brother and sister. They fled Iraq following the government's killing of close family members. The father was detained by police and obtained a short-term visa in Jordan. After staying in Jordan, they fled to Syria. Then, via Malaysia and Indonesia, they arrived at Christmas Island when it was part of Australia.

These people were in the Curtin and Port Hedland detention centres before arriving in Villawood. The New South Wales Department of Community Services produced formal medico/legal reports on the two teenage boys and found both of them to be at considerable risk of suicide or self-harm, that the condition of the whole family was poor and that, without doubt, they were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, ill-health and depression.

The DOCS report describes experiences of great deprivation in detention centres in situations clearly much worse than in our prisons and says that this family has been subjected to treatment more humiliating and oppressive than we would allow in our prisons. There are heart-rending descriptions of how these experiences have affected them-the teenage boys in particular. You have to ask why on earth we would treat people like that when it does nothing to protect us, especially given the fact that, in this case, they are people fleeing Iraq whom you would imagine, given the talk of war, are our allies.

DOCS recommended that, as a matter of urgency, the whole family, in the interests of their health and safety, be relocated in the community. Unfortunately, in response to questions in the New South Wales parliament on what action DOCS was proposing to take, the Minister for Youth and Community Services replied that it was a Commonwealth matter. The most positive result is that the children at least are going to school outside Villawood.

The last part of my motion is about refugee welcome zones. I have circulated copies of the declaration among members and I seek leave to table one now.

Leave granted.

MS TUCKER: I present the following paper:

Refugee Welcome Zone notice-Copy of Declaration of the Australian Capital Territory as a Refugee Welcome Zone.

Having refugee welcome zones is an initiative of the Refugee Council of Australia. (Extension of time granted.) It is a way for local councils, on behalf of their communities, to make a statement on their spirit of welcome for refugees. The Melbourne office of the council has developed a declaration which, so far, has been formally signed by 29 local councils in Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.

The declaration does not bind signatories to any particular actions. The councils which have signed on have then taken a range of actions-from keeping fairly quiet about it through to, in the case of Marrickville Council in Sydney, publishing for their

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