Today there are 46 people detained at the Park Hotel, refugees and people who’ve sought asylum.
46 more than there should be.
21 of these vulnerable people have covid.
21 more than should have.
This is awful – and it simply should not have happened.
Places like the Park Hotel aren’t safe places for them to be, especially during this pandemic.
This is hardly a secret, and it’s something that I raised with then Minister Tudge in March last year. March last year.
Let’s remember that the human beings in the Park Hotel are there because they were unwell.
At least 14 people in the Park Hotel are immunocompromised and at a heightened risk.
Our duty of care to them was to keep them safe and get them better.
We have failed, profoundly. Failed these men and failed a wider test.
Australians are better than this – I don’t just think this, I know it. Every day during this pandemic we’ve seen demonstrations of our concern and care for those around us.
Informed by a sense of decency, and responsibility – and a recognition that covid hones in on of vulnerability. But not from the Morrison-Joyce government.
Where is the policy rationale for this cruelty? How is it that some have been released from APOD detention, but not others – when we’ve known for so long of the inherent dangers?
How can it be that vaccination rates amongst detainees are so low, given their vulnerabilities?
Only 64% of people in the immigration detention network have received their first dose of the vaccine – almost 30% lower than the general Victorian population.
What’s been done to work with these men, and their trusted advisers, to encourage vaccination?
Keeping people who are in our care safe is – or should be – non-negotiable.
This can’t continue. These men have been through so much, and now they must be so scared.
For no reason – save for a series of unacceptable failures by this government.
Who still, as I stand here now, won’t accept their responsibility.
For what they’ve done, and for what they’ve failed to do – provide decent care to human beings in need.
As a refugee in the Park Hotel said: “we are not just speaking about a visa, we are speaking about our lives”.
