Refugee Rights and COVID-19

Presenters:
Anthea Vogl
Paul Redmond
Erika Serrano

>> Paul: To give us your um list your name now as it appears in the UTS system so we can give you points for attendance. It's great to see so many people here. 36 or registered 36 online now and and growing by the moment. We're expecting quite a few more a few more such is Anthea Vogl's star power! While you're waiting I'll just talk about some of the courses that Anthea teaches. She teaches Administrative Law, Refugee Law, Migration Law, Human Rights, Legal Theory, a Justice course a really interesting Justice course in the JD program for which I hear there may be a few places left and also Law and Literature program. But I'll say that again for for those who arrive, a bit later.

>> Anthea: I don't actually, I, Law and Literature I don't teach anymore but the others I do. 

>> Paul: I can see Maxine Eva's there. Maxine I love your headwear! It is terrific. How are you? 

>> Maxine: It is very cool. I had this hat on once and a lady walked past me and she said "I love your hat it's a real hoot!" It took me a while to get it because of the owl bit but I must say it's very warm Paul. 

>> Paul: Well it's very appropriate for you.

>> Maxine: Excuse my attire, but it is after hours Paul so it is a bit relaxed.

>> Paul: Owls are very wise, known for their wisdom so I think it's done the right here.

>> Maxine: Hopefully it'll come through! I'm really looking forward to tonight and it's great to see so many students here after exams and final assessments and just hopefully you're taking a break and using this as something that they can is you know the great part about learning without having to worry about assessments and things. Just really taking that time I would encourage all our students to really take a very deep break and try not to do too much because it's been a huge session for students as you know for your teachers. We've had some wonderful feedback from staff, Paul and Anthea, about acknowledging all the hard work and the thinking and the turning around very quickly that staff did in that pause week. It really was a partnership just like the Brennan Program is between students and teachers in getting at turning ourselves around and just getting on with our learning for Autumn. So it's not over yet as we know and spring will be a hybrid of some face to face. I'm back on campus but primarily online. So that's why I really encourage all students to take a really decent break so that they can reenergise and get ready for spring.

>> Paul: Great! I should add for those who don't know. Maxine Evers is the associate Dean for Education The Faculty who has enormous responsibility in relation for the teaching program and the quality of the education you're getting. This semester has been an extraordinary, hate to use the word, unprecedented, but it is true, and it's created you know really a unique set of problems which you know Maxine has been in the Forefront of addressing and resolving. So well so you know I think Maxine it's lovely that you've taken the time out tonight just to be with us and also her advice is so helpful you know take a break now take a break 

>> Maxine: Thanks Paul I'm looking forward to it.

>> Paul: I wonder everybody, Erika do you think we should make a start now or wait a bit longer.

>> Erika: I think Paul it's fine to get started. Crystal and I are just going over attendance just reviewing the lists as more people come in but we're happy to do that while both you and Anthea get started if you like.

>> Paul: All right now that's great well let me welcome everybody. This is welcome to the third event in the Justice Talks series for this year, tonight focusing on Refugee Justice. We have a full program of such Justice Talks planned for spring so look out for that as it's revealed. My name is Paul Redmond and I'm representing the faculty this evening along with Erika Serrano, the LSS Brennan program director and Crystal McLaughlin who most of you will know all of you will know I think our program administrator. But most importantly our special guest and presenter this evening Dr Anthea Vogel from UTS law faculty, one of the faculty's brilliant like brilliant young scholars and we're very fortunate to have such a cohort of brilliant young scholars coming through. I acknowledge the presence also of Maxine Eva's the professor Maxine Eva's the associate Dean for education. If you can bare with me just for a moment to lay out some housekeeping. You'll know all about this from I suppose from classes but if you can bare to have it reminded. You've each got the ability to hide and show your camera as well as mute and unmute your microphones. As you will have found in classes when you're not speaking please put your microphone on mute. If you find that the event is freezing on you on your Zoom please click you know the hide stop video or hide camera to free up some bandwidth. When you're speaking, we'd love you to show your face to camera if you feel comfortable doing that's so that we can see your friendly face. We expect many Brennan members to come in tonight, you may want to turn your camera off and only turn on when asking a question during the Q & A time. Lastly, and a very important request, in order to get your Five ROJ Points, please list your full name in the chat box as it appears in the UTS system and the Brennan team, which tonight is particularly Erika and Crystal, will award you points after the event. You can also use the chat box for any other questions during the event either questions about Refugee Justice addressed by Anthea or other Brennan Program question related questions generally and Erika and Crystal will respond while Anthea presents. Now after that housekeeping is settled, may I introduce Dr Anthea Vogel. At UTS, Anthea teaches a wide range of subjects Administrative Laws some of you may know her from the Administrative Law, Refugee Law, Migration Law, Human Rights Law, Law and Legal Theory including a very significant course on Justice. She has taught Law and Literature and that's also that discipline that sub-discipline of law informs her research. In research, she's a very active and influential researcher particularly in Refugee and Migration Law and and she's also been instrumental in the Brennan Program in creating opportunities for students to work, to contribute to Refugee and Asylum Seeker support but also experience, particularly through Refugee and advice and casework service Rex. Anthea thank you very much now that your marking has just finished, for taking time tonight just to share your research. The format is that after Anthea has spoken, we'll have a Q & A session which Erika and I will share the moderation of but since this event is part of RASA month, Refugee and Asylum Seeker Action month, Erika may want to say some words about other activities in that program so you can be fully involved in it. I think that's all I need to say by way of introduction, probably a bit more than even necessary but Anthea may I invite you now just to take the floor and we'll look forward to your presentation thank you again. 

>> Anthea: Thanks so much Paul. It's lovely to be here everyone thanks for the generous introduction. Having taught many of you this session, I think I'm the most impressed that we have such excellent numbers showing up for another Zoom session on a Tuesday evening, so thank you all for coming. It's inspiring and exciting as one of your lecturers but also as a researcher I don't realise so many of our students and our student cohort here at UTS are so engaged and have as I've heard from the other Justice Talks that have taken place, been so kind of closely interested and willing to keep on with their extracurricular and Brennan Justice activities through the Brennan Justice Talks so it's very exciting. What I am going to do is essentially I was going to share my screen but I might come to some of my most of my screen images that illustrate some of the things I'm talking about, so I might just talk to you face to face for a little while and then share some of the slides that I had prepared either at the end of the talk or we'll send them out to students. I also wanted to thank Paul and Erika and Crystal for the invitation to speak it's a real pleasure to contribute to the Brennan Justice Program on all occasions and tonight as well. I also wanted to before I begin, acknowledge that I'm speaking on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I live and work on Gadigal land and I also wanted to acknowledge the elders past and present and also at this particular moment and as will be relevant to so many Brennan Justice students, express my ongoing going solidarity with the struggle for Indigenous Justice and as many of you would have seen more recently in the news, the fight to end Indigenous deaths in custody and achieve justice for those who have died in police custody to date and their families. I think as we think about some of the things I'll be talking about we'll see the kind of crossovers in the ways in which race features in questions of Justice in Australian law and politics. So as you know this evening, I'm talking to you all about Refugee Law, but in particular, the effects and impacts of COVID-19 on Refugee and people seeking Asylum. Although the pandemic is the focus of my talk, I wanted to note from the beginning that some of the issues of justice and injustice that I'll be talking about have definitely predated the pandemic and so they're not entirely new or unique. So from the outset I wanted to invite everyone to think about a theme that I think will run through some of the things that I'm talking to you about which is the way in which COVID-19 has exacerbated and reinforced challenges and inequality and forms of exclusion by particular marginalised and racialised groups, rather than kind of created only new problems and that's especially true of those seeking Asylum and Refugee communities. Of course the pandemic has certainly had some aspects that are entirely new both in terms of Law and Justice and there have been exceptional ways in which refugees and Asylum Seekers I think have forced us to critique the now commonly heard and I think sometimes sentimental refrain, that we're all in this together in relation to the pandemic, because refugees and Asylum Seekers and non-citizens more generally have certainly been systemically left out of many of the pandemic and public health responses as we'll talk about, in a manner that not only endangers their safety in a very grave way but also the safety of broader communities around them and we are part of those communities in so far as refugees and Asylum Seekers are here and either have gained protection or are seeking protection in Australia. So making sure we have time for questions, I wanted to highlight two areas where Refugees and Asylum Seekers have been affected they're by no means the only areas. First of all they are COVID-19's impact on resettlement and Refugee Mobility more broadly and I'm going to follow that by a closer discussion on the effects of the pandemic on those held in Immigration detention and quite a local examination of the Australian government's responses to this. My talk will focus on Australia but the dynamics that I'm going to raise and talk about are relevant globally and especially in other states in the global north whose policies are similar to Australia's in so far as many what we call 'Refugee receiving states', have adopted policies that deter people seeking Asylum or an obstruct the rights to protection. In those States we've seen similar problems and issues to those that I'll talk about in Australia. First though, some general comments on Refugee resettlement. So as many have observed now and as since been written, COVID-19 affects Asylum Seekers at a most fundamental level. It affects their ability to seek protection in another country. For those of you who have studied Refugee Law with me and I see a couple of you who have, the global Refugee system is of course built around people's ability to leave their country and seek Asylum elsewhere. So a person can't be recognised as a refugee unless they've crossed an international border and you certainly can't seek Asylum under the formal Refugee convention from within your own country. Even though we have internally displaced people who are governed by the UNHCR to meet the definite refugees the primary thing you have to have done is to have left your country of origin. So on the 1st of May of this year the UNHCR estimated that 167 countries had partially or fully closed their borders to contain the spread of COVID-19. 57 at least 57 of those countries were not making exceptions for people seeking asylum. On the 17th of March 2020 so slightly before that point, the UNHCR and the International Organisation of Migration, so they're two of the international organisations that have primary responsibility for processing refugee applications internationally, they announced that they would temporarily suspend resettlement travel, so travel of refugees from their sites of seeking protection to countries willing to resettle them permanently or temporarily, and the UNHCR has said they're suspending such travel for as long as necessary in the context of the pandemic. Most recently they've announced that they will not be meeting their goal of resettling 70 000 refugees in 2020. I hope that some of you are noticing that number the UNHCR's own goal of 70 000 is incredibly low in the context of the number of people in who have protection needs globally, but even that small number won't be resettled this year because of the pandemic. Australia as we will know, has effectively shut its borders to those who are not resident citizens or direct family members of Australian residents or citizens. So it has effectively shut down Asylum Pathways and again to bring us back to that theme of the way in which the pandemic has exacerbated existing injustices, many of us should and do know that for Asylum Seekers arriving by boat, Australia's borders have already been long shut so we have a very comprehensive regime of deterrence and boat turnbacks which has effectively shut down pathways for maritime arrivals long before the pandemic. So the inability of those people to seek asylum in Australia remains but hasn't necessarily been changed or exacerbated by the pandemic. That's different for those who arrive by plane because essentially now we have Australian and this is the department says this on their website, the Australian Border Force liaison officers are now working at overseas airports and in conjunction with Airlines, they are identifying anyone who shouldn't board a flight to Australia. So at the moment that's anyone who's not a resident or a citizen or related to a resident or a citizen. So you can see how effectively this means that people who might have been seeking Asylum coming into Australia on another Visa such as a visitor Visa or a student visa are effectively unable to do so during this period and that's often how people who might need to flee, say, persecution in Iran a student who might be fleeing persecution might come to Australia in fact on a student visa and then activate or make use of their right under International and Australian law to seek Asylum here. So since the UNHCR has also ceased all resettlement travel this also means that even those who have been recognised as refugees or might have been given permanent resettlement in Australia via UNHCR referrals or our offshore humanitarian program, are no longer to be resettled this year and effectively won't be resettled until resettlement begins again. Interestingly, in a talk that I attended last week on resettlement of refugees so providing refugees with a permanent place in a country like Australia and COVID-19, the talk organised by the excellent Kaldor Centre at UNSW, one of the speakers there was actually an assistant Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs and Sally Pfeiffer who is that person, confirmed that Australia has only really met two-thirds of its resettlement quota to date and the rest of our resettlement places for this financial year simply won't be filled. For those of you who keep up with these things, Australia has about 18 or 19, 18 700 resettlement places a year and so even that small number again won't be realised this year because of the impacts of COVID-19. So that's a very global picture and it gives you a sense of the ways in which Refugee law at an international level is being affected by the pandemic and the ways in which states are responding and I guess then the the effects of shutting down the borders which have many effects but the effects on refugees seeking protection particularly. I now want to move away from the global and to a much more national issue, and to talk about what I think is one of the gross and grave injustices in how Australian government has responded to the pandemic and that is in relation to refugees and Asylum Seekers who are already in the country. So these are not people seeking Asylum from beyond Australia's borders, but who are here. I'm going to focus primarily on immigration detention in Australia. Of course that's again not the only issue and for those of you who've had a look at the some of the readings and the texts that I shared with you before this talk, you will of course have seen one of the big issues in Australia is the exclusion of Asylum seekers. In particular and temporary Refugee Visa holders from any form of welfare put in place in response to the pandemic. So people seeking asylum who are often on bridging visas what we call bridging visas, have been excluded from the job seeker and the job keeper program and people who have been given temporary protection visas in Australia, so they've been recognised as refugees are also excluded from those programs. We can maybe talk about this a little bit more in the question time but that has created an incredible crisis really of welfare and health and the ability to really subsist among those communities and we can talk about some of the organisations who have stepped in and I'm involved some of those organisations to try and fill the immediate, social and welfare needs of those groups. So to come back though to detention, some of the work that I'm presenting is also as both as a result of my research in this area and also the advocacy that I undertake as a national convener of a group called Academics for Refugees. I'm one of the academic conveners of that group at a national level and I work with a couple of other conveners and we've worked on some of this research together or pulling together some of this research so namely, Professor Philomena Murray from Melbourne University, Caroline Flay who is from the University of WA, Claire Lochman also from the University of Melbourne and Sarah Dem who is of course at UTS and a colleague of mine here who are all doing very interesting important work in this field. So when the pandemic hit, the urgent cause for the release of people seeking Asylum and refugees and other non-citizens from immigration detention centres began just about immediately. So as soon as the scope and scale of the harms of COVID-19 were clear. Public health organisations quickly identified detention centres as sites of mandatory and often overcrowded social confinement as extremely high-risk places for both infection and onward transmission of COVID-19. So in Australia before the end of March 2020, so you'll remember that that was when restrictions were beginning to come into place, already over 1100 Healthcare professionals and epidemiologists had called for the government to release people from immigration detention. Their letter flatly stated and I'm quoting now "that failure to take action to release Asylum Seekers and refugees from detention will put them at greater risk of infection and possibly death". Seamless statements were made by organisations that are not usually Refugee advocacy organisations so the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases and the Australian College of Infection and Prevention Control and also 1100 International academics in an open letter organised by myself and the colleagues that I just mentioned as part of Academics Refugees, gave expert advice on the government as to why detention centres needed to be refugees and detention centres where possible needed to be released into the community. What is so significant here and I think something that we will talk about and can talk about in the discussion, is that despite the Australian government's willingness to follow and and rightly follow the advice of Public Health experts in relation to the broader community, it absolutely has refused to heed the advice of experts in relation to the health concerns for refugees and Asylum Seekers and non-citizens. The Australian government has refused to follow what the World Health Organisation and many other human rights bodies have strongly urged states to do which is and it's really simple, to immediately implement non-custodial measures and release people within high risk closed environments where that is possible. That call for release is even more pressing when detention is administrative. So again my administrative law students and refugee law students this should be sounding familiar, but the point of detention is that not because of the commission of a crime or because there's a threat to community safety if the person was released or security, but the detention is itself is administrative. In those circumstances, the urgency of releasing people from detention is not only heightened but there is a much stronger impetus to let people leave closed detention centres. Why is this so urgent? Some of this should be obvious. But currently there are about 1400 people in Immigration detention in Australia. This includes in what we call Alternative Places of Detention. Alternative Places of Detention include commercial hotels located in or on the outskirts of Australian cities. We can talk about why refugees are in those hotels but there are a number of refugees being held in kind of crowded hotel rooms not just detention centres. The serious and obvious risks are of course due to overcrowding and reports received from refugees inside these immigration sites have repeatedly now indicated that the staff at these sites have adopted limited or no protective measures and that those who are detained don't have adequate access to things like hand sanitisers and hand washing facilities. We've seen the problems that can arise in relation to the behaviour of guards and personnel in relation to the other quarantine hotels and those risks of course carry over into sites of detention. One of the big and ongoing issues here for detention centres is the lack of transparency and oversight of immigration detention facilities which are run by large multinational for-profit operators and in relation to Australian detention centres that company is called Circo. For those in alternative places of detention, the hotel chains that are contracted to keep people in their particular hotels are of course also contracted by the Australian government and subject to similar kind of privacy and transparency issues. This has meant there's little to no public information about testing for refugees who might be concerned that they have COVID-19 or immigration detention or the availability of medical quarantine in immigration detention centres. This of course leads us to an important question and that is 'What is being done about this?'. So how has the Australian government responded and also and this is a question that I think is really important when we are thinking about marginalised communities, 'how have the refugees and Asylum Seekers themselves who have been excluded from these measures responded and what actions have they been able to take?'. I think critically and for those of you who are following these issues you will know that refugees and Asylum Seekers held in detention have pretty much since the outbreak of the pandemic, been protesting their exclusion from public health measures and from the Australian government's response to the pandemic. So there are refugees and non-citizens detained in the well-known hotel chain Mantra in Melbourne and in the Kangaroo Point Hotel in Brisbane and they've engaged in daily peaceful protests and utilise social media campaigns to call for their urgent release into safer accommodation. Other protests have taken place at the community level and have been organised by those outside of detention centres and in a really interesting intersection between the laws regulating the pandemic and our pandemic response and Refugee law and and the safety of those in detention, in early April 2020 protesters formed a car motorcade to highlight the conditions faced by detainees held in the Mantra Hotel in a North Melbourne suburb. Those detained at the Mantra Bell City hotel also protested from within the hotel. So the protesters of course were required to also comply with the public health orders enforcing Victoria at the time and so while they were outside of the hotel, they maintained social distance by staying in their cars at all times so it was a car procession. Despite this, police have issued those protesters with $43 000 worth of fines in total for breaching the stay-at-home direction that was put in place by the Victorian government. The protesters argued at the time that they had left their home for compassionate reasons which as many of you know is a reasonable excuse to travel under the orders both in New South Wales and Victoria and they're contesting the fines that have been issued to them by the Victorian police. Further protests at the APOD sites are currently taking place in both Melbourne and Brisbane and those who are there continue to protest the failure of the government to extend the same public health safety measures that they extend to the broader Community to them and many are using Facebook and Twitter to document their protests and conditions. I think it's a particularly kind of telling incident in the Australian government and the state government's response to the pandemic insofar as they are issuing fines at the site of a protest which is essentially the Asylum Seekers are calling for their ability to social distance and their ability to abide by and respect the public health and government advice around the pandemic. A couple of other things and again we can talk about them in the discussion, that we have been tracking some more legal strategies to respond to the ways in which refugees and Asylum Seekers have been treated in this period there was a High Court case launched by the Human Rights Law Centre on behalf of a refugee who had underlying health conditions in detention, arguing that Australian government had breached its duty of care or was breaching its duty of care to the Asylum Seeker who could not socially distance and maintain safety in Immigration detention during COVID-19. There have also been submissions made to the joint parliamentary committee into COVID-19 in relation to people held both in prisons and youth detention centres and of course in Immigration detention centres. Even though I've talked a little bit about APODS, so the alternative places of detention, of course all of the things that I've mentioned apply to detention centres so sites that you will be more familiar with in terms of where refugees and Asylum Seekers and non-citizens are currently being detained. So to conclude briefly and open up to discussion, I think it's very clear and it's useful for us to reflect on the way in which the virus and COVID-19 certainly isn't a social leveller as has been claimed by some of the early reports and the very current and live issue of the lockdown of the Housing Commission Towers in Melbourne at the moment really reminds us or invites us to consider the uneven effects of the way in which the pandemic has been managed. I think the government's response to COVID-19 really illustrates for us some of the persistent inequalities and discrimination faced by those who are not deemed worthy of inclusion generally and therefore have not been included in the public health response. The experience of COVID-19 has certainly for those in Immigration detention is also a reminder of the importance of researchers and academics and those of us interested in justice, to trace COVID-19's disproportionate impact on people seeking Asylum and refugees and other non-citizens. I think the pandemic has really exacerbated existing inequalities and some of those inequalities relate to socioeconomic precarity and access to health but for refugees and Asylum Seekers, they have shut down the very pathway that refugees require in order to seek protection and Asylum.

>> Paul: Thank you very much Anthea that was amazing in the range of things you covered and the clarity of which you presented them. Look we've got lots of time now for questions and discussion. Erika and I will share the moderation but I might, Erika perhaps invite you if you want to take the the lead in relation to calling for questions and comments. Just a reminder that if you are if you have a question please signal your interest in doing so and put your video on so that we can see you're smiling or you're intelligent in questioning face. Erika do you want to do you want to invite questions and comments.

>> Erika: Okay we have Preeti who has raised her hand. Everyone feel free to either raise your hand or put your name in the chat box or wave in the you know in your camera we'll be monitoring all three. Thanks Preeti if you want to go ahead.

>> Preeti: Yeah I think my my question was if these migrant refugees have been contributing to the economy and paying taxes, why have they been excluded from the job keeper payment even and in fact that that budget for the job keeper payment has been overestimated. So why isn't the government then allocating these funds to the people who rightly need it?

>> Anthea: Yeah Preeti I think that's a very good question and particularly in relation to the overestimation so the mistake the budgetary mistake that was made around job keeper. The government's initial response was to say there are about a million people in the Australian community who are on temporary protect not temporary protection visas but temporary visas at the moment and they said that they had to draw the line somewhere as if it was an arbitrary line. I think it's certainly not an arbitrary line when we look at the ways in which certain migrants have been excluded and they said that's where they drew the line and part of it was a budgetary concern but they then didn't have a very good answer when the overestimation came through and some of that reasoning came undone. They have maintained the idea that you know that the budget required them required everyone not to be included in this response. But alongside your point about them paying taxes so temporary migrants of course pay tax into the Australian tax system, bridging Visa holders who are working pay tax, all temporary and permanent Refugee Visa holders pay tax. I think there's a question about how it damages the government's response to COVID-19 because if people are essentially left without an income they will work in circumstances where they might be unwell and should be staying home but also they are absolutely unable to access the kind of forms of support and welfare that people need in terms of the sickness that they might face. Troublingly, even people on bridging visas some people haven't had their bridging visas renewed in a timely way and what that has meant is they don't have access to Medicare. So you can start to see the layers of the injustice around why have they been excluded in the first place but then questions around you know how is this damaging the way in which the government is articulating its response to COVID-19 

>> Preeti: Thanks Anthea.

>> Anthea: That's okay.

>> Erika: Thanks Preeti. Now we've also got Monica who's raised her hand. Monica did you want to turn your video on.

>> Monica: Hi my kind of question was about what you said towards the end there Anthea about how in Flemington and in Melbourne there have been you know public housing that's been shut down and how that imposes on you know people's freedoms. I guess my question for you was given that they are public housing, do you think the government's exercising their right to look down in a positive way in terms of that you know where in private houses they can't force us into lockdown as they can't in Victoria? Would you say that this is a necessary kind of taking away of those freedoms or do you feel that it is done in a way that kind of doesn't really acknowledge that?

>> Anthea: Yeah I think that's a good question Monica and it raises a range of issues around and issues that connect to  some of the themes around refugees and Asylum Seekers about the unevenness of the government's response to some of the risks of COVID-19. As you say there are a range of other areas or other parts of Melbourne that have been presented as similar hot spots and have raised similar threats and including other kind of high density living sites but it's the public housing site that has been shut off. I think one of the major concerns about how that has taken place is the government's lack of planning and foresight around how that should be managed but I think the biggest problem with it is the way in which and and this is something that has carried over into the general response to the pandemic, the utilisation of the police force in a way that doesn't necessarily orientate towards Health and Welfare and instead has been used in a way that has as the public health residents have reported in the last couple of days, made them feel fearful, intimidated, not part again not part of the public health response, but blamed for behaviours even though they've the residents have reported attempts to comply and improve public health and safety within those Towers. So of course we need to think about effective ways of managing the pandemic but I think the big critiques around the shutting down of those Public Health Towers is again the orientation towards a criminalising or an exclusion of particular communities rather than their inclusion in the response and I and alongside the concerns that you've raised.

>> Erika: Thanks Monica and Anthea. We also have a question from Serif. 

>> Anthea: Hi Serif.

>> Serif: Hi yeah so my question is broadly. Okay basically how do you not like lose hope as like an academic/lawyer because the more and more with what's going on now with like the refugees people in housing commission and even like all the rallies that are going on I think I'm losing hope in like systemic change from within and like even the letter that you spoke about like that's amazing that the Australian government like didn't really do anything. I just find it really depressing, for a lack of a better word, to feel motivated that as lawyers or lawyers to be that we can actually do anything and so you know I wanted to know like what do you think we can actually do from our position or do you think like direct action is the only thing.

>> Anthea: Yeah it's a big question and I think one that attaches to all kinds of social justice work and all kinds of whether it be academic work or advocacy work or legal work so all of the lawyers that I'm in contact with who are at the front lines of trying to manage processing Asylum claims even this time and and make sure their clients aren't losing hope because for so long for a long period of time even the processing of claims stopped. I mean I think for many of us who work in this field the the creation and existence of communities actually like the Brenna Justice student community, is so crucial to the way in which you keep on working and you are able to sustain I guess hope and also energy to to do the research that we do or do the advocacy that we do because there are so many people around you doing kind of incredible and effective work. Even though the government I definitely showed the ways in which the government hasn't responded, there are moments of kind of small wins or the ways in which the community can operate outside of how the government sets a particular agenda that are incredibly important and inspiring. The community and NGO organisations that have stepped in for example in the absence of welfare support and in the exclusion of those Asylum Seekers from job keeper and job Seeker is kind of actually mind-blowing and they're organisations that provide legal advice they provide welfare they provide Health Care. I think it's working with people who have similar goals and who are driven by kind of similar values and for lawyers similar kind of orientations towards the law and how it should be operating and what you would like it to be doing, is the way in which you sustain yourself. Working in this field it's also through having contact with and working in solidarity with the people who are being detained. So one thing I didn't get to talk about is the way in which refugee-led organisations have really stepped up to try and direct how government policy is managed during the pandemic. So there's an Asia-Pacific network of refugees and they've held these Zoom meetings across up to kind of 10 or 12 different countries I think, inviting refugees to discuss how they have been treated in the context to the pandemic and what they think would be useful to tell to the government in order to protect their health and safety better. So I think it's always inspiring that ability to kind of work with people also keeps you motivated and guides the work that is done. All of which to say is not to say that you don't get very tired and demoralised. I'd be painting too much of a rosy picture of things if I said we're always upbeat and happy and full of hope. I don't think that's the case. But definitely it's the people that you work with and the organisations that are stepping in some of these injustices that I guess motivate you to keep on focusing on some of the things that you think are important.

>> Erika: Following on from that question Anthea, you know what avenues would you recommend for students to get involved with volunteering and supporting this community. Particularly with volunteering polls by many organisations such as RACS. 

>> Anthea: It's a good question Erika and it's definitely a time when many organisations have limited volunteer intake or at least put a pause on things while they reorganise and reorientate in the context of the pandemic and as we as those of you who are interested in human rights know, it's a very competitive field. I always say to my students you know we always imagine that getting into private law or some of the big firms is difficult. If you think that's hard, try and get a job in a human rights law organisation. But that's not to demoralise everyone. I think at this time it's important to do all of the things that you do that we you have done as students when thinking about the kind of careers that you want which is identify the organisations that you're interested in, get in contact with them, so RACS for example, they're still taking expressions of interest, even though they're not processing volunteers at the moment and find out the ways in which you can get involved in that organisation. Even though the pandemic is of course a very uncertain time for all of us and also for organisations, you know it things this will not things will not be like this forever and also all of these organisations are again also kind of putting in place all kinds of creative strategies to move online and deliver services even in spite of the barriers that are in place. So I think some of the organisations, if you are interested in doing some non-legal work or getting in touch with the organisations that are stepping into some of the welfare gaps, there's a real need for kind of hands-on assistance at organisations like the Asylum Seeker centre So in the Ben Doherty piece that I shared with some of you ahead of this session, the Asylum Seeker centre was featured it's an incredible organisation in Newtown that is delivering food and providing Health Services for refugees. They need volunteers to help with their food delivery services and settlement services. The House of Welcome, which is in Western Sydney, is another organisation that's assisting with welfare. The Jesuit Refugee service is another organisation. They're not necessarily directly kind of legal law related volunteer positions, but they're all organisations with legal casework services so it's about I guess making contact with them in this time and then pursuing perhaps other opportunities that might be more directly relevant to your studies. We of course run our and I can see some of our students here but the refugee law and practice subject, we run in combination with the refugee and in partnership with the refugee advice and casework service and at the start of the subject I said to the solicitors "that we work with, you know we're all moving online and it's a period of intense change and you guys must be going through a lot and be very busy, let me know if it's too much to run the refugee or clinic this session because it's everyone's so overworked" and they said, "what do you mean? We absolutely want to run the refugee law clinic let's figure out a way to put it online. There's nothing roughly there's nothing we can't do". So students involved students interested in a subject around Refugee law that subject runs in Autumn of next year again so not this year unfortunately and we'll be running regardless of the online or hopefully by then face-to-face teaching environment that we find ourselves in.

>> Erika: Thanks Anthea. We've got a question from Preeti.

>> Preeti: My questions around who's being held accountable for the sites at these hotels sorry for the staff at the sites of the hotels who are potentially transmitting even if it's like recklessly these COVID. Like who's being held accountable for that?

>> Anthea: Yeah it's a good question and the reality is even though with the sites of detention that are operated by private contractors and in this case and this hasn't been tested yet because the hotels are essentially a new feature of our detention network. But certainly in relation to the ways in which claims around duty of care are made in the detention centres and private operators generally. The immediate duty of care still lies with the Australian government so that it's our duty of care that the Australian government can't contract out of and so in the event that and there was a guard early on in the pandemic. It was reported that a guard in one of the Brisbane sites of detention had contracted COVID-19, that wasn't passed on to any of the refugees and Asylum Seekers at the site, but claims in terms of accountability and legal responsibility would still be made against the Australian government. Those claims have been successful so it's not that there's no hope in terms of prosecuting a duty of care and a tortious liability in relation to harms in detention centres more broadly so not just in relation to COVID-19 and one of the largest ever human rights payments in relation to a breach of duty of care has occurred last year or the year before relation to detainees held in offshore detention. So they can be very kind of successful or high there's a higher degree of success with some of those cases but the interesting thing for those of you who have done Tort and might know, is that because these cases are so politically charged and the government certainly doesn't want evidence though to be called upon and be required to subpoena, all kinds of evidence and witnesses in relation to the detention centres and the private companies that are operating there most of the 'wins' have proceeded by way of settlement. So we don't actually get too much access to the law that might have been relied upon and we don't necessarily get a precedent that we can rely upon in the future but we do know that they are that there's a lot of space for legal advocacy in relation to holding the government to account, even where private contractors are involved 

>> Preeti: That's good news.

>> Anthea: Yeah some good news. Look I don't often get to deliver good news when I'm teaching Refugee law though I shouldn't be too blatant. Certainly the Asylum Seekers themselves and their kind of their advocacy throughout this period has been creative and inspiring and very kind of tireless so yeah.

>> Preeti: So if the government is held accountable of this, why is for example abolition of those technology measures not coming to fruition or abolition of like the laws that like their newer laws to I don't know I forgot what I was going to say but to that really violate our rights when it comes in the wake of COVID-19, why aren't those why isn't that happening?

>> Anthea: So do you mean Preeti, for example why the system stay in place so if there's yeah. So I mean I guess the important thing to note is that when we first say a private law challenge or a challenge in terms of a duty of care, we're not challenging it doesn't necessarily challenge the regimes of detention themselves or the laws that allow mandatory and definite detention to take place in Australia. They relate instead to a kind of direct duty of care in a particular circumstance so even though there might be a breach of a duty of care in relation to how detention centres operate, that doesn't mean the detention centres themselves are unlawful. They have been, again, for we'll recall from administrative law and Refugee law, a range of challenges to the to the Constitutional Foundation of permanent, sorry, indefinite administrative detention. Ever since well the first one of the first cases around this which was the Chan case which said we're allowed to indefinitely detain non-citizens in Australia, all of the challenges have essentially failed. So the basis for detention is both constitutionally lawful but also is statutory so the the ways in which the statutes have been framed have also allowed the government to maintain onshore and offshore detention which of course has a range of implications in the context of the pandemic. I mean and this is something that Michelle Bachelet, the Human Rights Commissioner, you know she rightly pointed out that the indefinite detention of refugees is not lawful to begin with and I think that's something we should remember. So we're already dealing with a situation that breaches international law and the most basic principles against arbitrary detention and so we already have a basis to kind of resist these or challenge these laws and the pandemic of course creates another context where we can see the ways in which the already unjust situation that refugees find themselves in has let has lent itself to kind of further risks to their health and safety.

>> Preeti: Thank you.

>> Erika: We've actually got a question in the chat box. "So do you think that there is a risk that governments will exploit the coronavirus pandemic to pursue or justify reducing Refugee settlement in Australia and do you think that there is a narrative being perpetuated or emerging that Australia's Refugee program and an effective response to COVID-19 are two goals which cannot be served side by side?" 

>> Anthea: So what a great question thanks Hugh. That's a really current and kind of politically charged question and I think the the kind of long-term impacts on refugee resettlement and government attitudes towards their offshore humanitarian programs as well as onshore programs are yet to be seen. So we're only starting to understand. We're only moving now as I said the UNHCR resettlement in March, most governments had shut their borders by May, so you know we're moving slowly out of full crisis mode to try and understand what is possible. Certainly I think, in relation to the first part of your question you know will it is it a basis to kind of reduce our humanitarian commitments. I think there's a genuine risk that that could be the case. So interestingly in the Australian government's consultations around its resettlement program and COVID-19 with advocacy organisations so key advocacy and international organisations, it's made clear that it won't necessarily so that the third of people who haven't been resettled whom they committed to resettle this year, that third of that resettlement population certainly isn't going to carry over into the next financial year. So they've said that's not how resettlement works we set our resettlement targets on a yearly basis and we're not going to just kind of make up that quota that we've refused even though as we've just talked about the resettlement needs Refugee protection needs have I mean we always say have never been higher, but people are in emergency situations and they can't leave and they can't cross borders so there's a real reason to come good on those commitments but they've made clear that they won't. I think in relation to the second aspect of your question, that's where our role as lawyers and advocates and experts in the field comes in so we have to make careful arguments about why refugee resettlement and the risks of COVID-19 are not counterposed and that refugee resettlement and the rights that refugees should be considered as part of the response to the pandemic and that the response shouldn't be guided by insular looking or a kind of retreat to nationalism or serving only kind of Australian citizens and Australian residents, but a commitment to the kind of a global approach to a global problem I think and that is the way in which organisations like International organisations have encouraged States not to resile from their humanitarian commitments. I think your question's a great one because I don't think that's I don't think it's necessarily the case that governments won't will not attempt to kind of say well we have to de-prioritise our humanitarian commitments, we have to de-prioritise the humanitarian program because of the great risk facing Australia, but I don't think for all of the reasons that we've talked about, that is the way to approach, yeah the government's kind of commitment to Justice in this area more broadly.

>> Erika: Thanks Anthea. We've also got another question from Naomi.

>> Naomi: Hi Anthea. It's really interesting hearing you speak. Thanks so much. Just following on from that response to Hugh, I now understand the statistic you were talking about earlier on about reducing resettlement by a third this year. Is that about actually not approving applications for protection? Is that what and on what basis like what's the rationale for doing that. I mean the Department of Immigration, those people should still be sitting there looking through applications like what are they doing is the first part of my question. The second thing is, has there actually been a change in the number of applications lodged? Because there are people here who you know who would still want to lodge their protection Visa applications.

>> Anthea: Yep they're great questions. In relation to the first question,the way in which the kind of offshore resettlement operates is that I guess it's people are recognised as refugees offshore and then the mechanisms are put in place to bring them to Australia. Unlike the onshore Asylum seeking scheme that we talk about a lot in the media where people come here and then apply, generally with the offshore resettlement scheme the Australian government through a range of avenues that we don't have time to go into accepts that people have humanitarian need, selects them while they are still outside of Australia and then facilitates their arrival here. So the way in which the Australian government would explain or the department would justify and explain why a third of those places haven't been met is because logistically in this last kind of well essentially the second half of the financial year, those people's travel would have been facilitated, their claims would have been processed either by the UNHCR or by Australian kind of Embassy is responsible for determining humanitarian need and that they haven't been able to do that because of the difficulties insights where those claims would have been processed and registered. Primarily they would be talking about the border closures in terms of getting people to Australia in that time.

>> Naomi: Right. So it's the offshore situation that you were talking about. So I'm really then interested in what's going on onshore so anybody who's has there been any change to the processing of the onshore applications because there should be no reason for that to change.

 >> Anthea: Yeah and this is where this is like the best ever plug for Refugee law because this is where it gets very interesting. Australia is one of the few countries, so we set a quota every year of about 18 000 people and I'm watching the time. But we set a quota every year about 18 000 people and we link our onshore and offshore quota numbers. So we punish so essentially the Australian government says if 3 000 people arrive onshore that means we'll decrease our offshore intake by 3000. So most other countries would say, here's our offshore commitments and whoever arrives here we have to process because that's our obligation under the refugee convention. What has happened with onshore processing in the context of the pandemic is that advocates have said, well we haven't been able to fulfil our offshore quota numbers we haven't met them so can't those numbers can't those people those visas now be given to onshore applicants, people who are in detention who are waiting for their claims to be processed. Couldn't we transfer them to the onshore applicants? But the department has signalled that they they won't be doing that. So those places that couldn't be fulfilled are not being given to people who might otherwise be waiting for their their claim to be processed. Having said that, it's important to say that the government doesn't formally kind of that they don't fulfil those quotas down to the you know it's not chapter and verse we've hit our quota and we won't process people anymore and that many of the people onshore who are still waiting for their claims to be process, are not being delayed because of the way the quota operates, but they're being delayed because of the injustices of the refugee status determination system here. So delays around having their claims processed. In relation to the second part of your first question, so it's certainly the case and again it's early days for us to be tracking how onshore claims have been affected by the border closures, but it's certainly the case that far fewer people would have been seeking asylum for those who arrive by plane. As I said people it's very difficult to arrive by boat in Australia anymore and as far as we know, no one has reached the Australian Border in recent times. But for people arriving by plane and seeking asylum either in Immigration clearance or after they come into the border on another form of Visa, it is inevitable that those numbers would have dropped very significantly because people anyone seeking to board a flight to Australia would simply be stopped at the airport where they seek to travel here because of the ways in which the border closures are operating.

>> Naomi: Great thank you.

 >> Anthea: No problem and someone I saw in the chat that someone said how do we determine at why 18 000 offer this year, why 18 750 to be precise. That is an entirely discretionary discussion and decision so that is the remit of cabinet and the executive government every year as part of they hold consultations with Refugee organisations and a range of other kind of stakeholders and they take submissions or input into how we should construct our humanitarian program and what numbers would be reasonable. Then they set a number a yearly target each year and the program follows the kind of the determine that executive determination which always happens in the context of the budgets. 

>> Erika: Sorry Anthea. I know we're a little bit over time. I just had a question I know it's a bit broad but you know following on from the idea of a narrative being perpetuated by the government, there was a statement in one of your readings by the immigration Minister Alan Tudge, who said "temporary Visa holders who are unable to support themselves over the next six months are strongly encouraged to return home. For these individuals it's time to go home and they should make arrangements as quickly as possible." What role do you think the immigration Minister plays in the discourse surrounding the community or politicians in general you know that they guide and they narrate how we view the topic what are your thoughts?

 >> Anthea: Yeah that's a great question Erika and we could have a whole other Justice talk I think on the role of discourse and narrative in relation to kind of race and justice and migration in Australia more generally. I think your question's so good and so on point because it forces us to remember that refugees and Asylum Seekers are being treated the ways in which they're being treated are connected to and relate to the ways in which other non-citizens are being treated and other forms of other people who are also temporary migrant. So I think when Tudge made that statement in relation not only to of course refugees and Asylum Seekers and refugees and Asylum Seekers aren't necessarily in that category because they can't go home they can't they're here but part of the reason they can't  are so harmed by these policies is because the basis of their legal right is that they can't return to their home country. For other temporary Visa holders including International students who are part of our UTS community and who we work with and study with, I think that was an incredibly shocking statement by the government really in the sense that it very much did set a discourse that as I said at the start of the talk, was so counterposed to the way in which the government had talked about the pandemic generally. So we that idea that we're all in this together and that this is something that is needs a community response and compliance is a community issue, the government's willingness to simply say well if you are not a citizen or a resident you should find a means to support yourself either through your existing superannuation or go home, really cut against that. I do think that kind of language has the ability to shape negatively frame and shape how we consider non-citizens and migrants in this country. At the same time I think so much of the response to that including from universities actually, was to say no temporary Visa holders are part of the community we don't draw the line around citizens and residents and non-citizens and that it's as simple as that. Again, I think there has been some excellent advocacy work by organisations in Melbourne actually based in Victoria, who have said who have raised an extraordinary amount of funds for people who have been excluded on the basis of comments like that from Tudge. To support people and provide them with welfare in this time but who have said and this is a really interesting legal argument actually, in relation to people who are undocumented, so we don't have a very large undocumented population but there are people in Australia whose visas have expired who haven't then sought further visas and many of those people work in Frontline and important industries like agriculture and farming. Kind of that campaign in Melbourne has been to seek amnesty for those people to say these people have worked here for a extraordinary amount of time until they became undocumented, they paid taxes and that they're working in primary and key industries around the pandemic. So there's a legal campaign for those people to be granted amnesty. I guess what I'm saying is there are other discourses or other narratives that are being mounted by people interested in justice and the rights of non-citizen and migrants who that really try to contest and really reframe the ways in which the government has addressed temporary protection Visa holders, temporary Refugee Visa holders, but also temporary Visa holders more generally.

>> Erika: Thanks for addressing that Anthea.

>> Anthea: Not at all. 

>> Erika: Paul did you want to.

>> Paul: Yes well look thank you Anthea. It's been amazingly lucid and clear presentation but also an inspiring and encouraging discussion after the presentation thank you very much. I was thinking of you know how other really positive things that come out. You were a bit worried about discouraging us. I think you've actually you've been extraordinarily encouraging. You've also been extraordinarily helpful in thinking about how students can in RASA month and in the time ahead, contribute through the Asylum Seeker centre in a practical way and and elsewhere. You've also I think been extraordinarily helpful in just helping us see as lawyers, as law students lawyers in the making, what strategies can be lawyers can usefully, creatively, powerfully perform. That's been very useful. I also want to thank you finally for the modelling in all those things of thought and of action of policy and of emotion in your response to this extraordinary situation in which despite the invocation that we're all in this together in with COVID. The reality is that COVID has actually exacerbated wedges that already had already plagued our society and have made them worse and worse and worse and we need to respond and you're given us you're given us parameters of thought and of action that will enable us to do something. Thanks very much for that inspiration and thank you to all the participants for your contribution it's been a terrific I think just a terrific Justice talk for Brennanites just know that we have more of them more of them. Even if that's still equality in Spring. So enjoy your break. Maxine if you want to come in and say something more by way of closure you're welcome to do so but.

>> Maxine: Not at all. Just thanks so much to Anthea and to You Paul and Erika for hosting and to all our students and just to reiterate I'll put my lecture hat on over my beanie that I would just ask all students to have a really good break and to refresh and renew before we see you all in Spring so thank you.

>> Anthea: Thanks and just reiterating thanks to Erika and Crystal and Paul for their amazing efforts in bringing us all together tonight it's so nice to see everyone and not to have to assess any of you for anything we've done tonight it's very exciting for me.

>> Paul: You'd all get 100%.

>> Anthea: Yeah even if I did have to assess you that's it.

>> Erika: Thank you everyone for coming and thank you Anthea for your time and answering all our questions so amazingly.

>> Anthea: Not at all they were great questions! Excellent! Thank you all thanks all bye-bye.

>> Dain: Thank you see you then bye thanks for that insightful discussion really interesting thanks for sure thanks Paul thanks Erika thanks Crystal.