Australian democracy needs a return to ethical politics

Children in detention exhibited symptoms including bed-wetting, sleep walking and night terrors. At the severe end of the spectrum, some children became mute, refused to eat and drink, made suicide attempts and began to self-harm, such as by cutting themselves.

With respect to some children the Inquiry found that:

The Department of Immigration failed to implement the clear - and in some cases repeated - recommendations of State agencies and mental health experts that they be urgently transferred out of detention centres with their parents. This amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Detention of children places extreme stress on their parents. Those we have come to know have expressed this to us. They felt responsible and guilty for bringing their children to Australia, where instead of finding freedom and the new home they had promised their children, they were being held in "a prison".

As the Inquiry stated "being in detenion can severely undermine the ability of parents to care for their children". Their normal roles in the family are taken away from them. Often too the parents are severely traumatized by the experience of detention, which reduces their ability to parent their children.

Children in detention have witnessed extreme forms of violence, riots, suicide attempts and self harm. Some have been tear gassed and struck by batons during riots. The Inquiry found that "the Commonwealth had breached the Convention on the Rights of the Child by failing to take all appropriate measures to protect children in detention from physical and mental violence".

Other measures which I would describe as inhumane and dehumanizing include giving children ( and their parents) a number which they must wear at all times and by which they are known and called; not allowing parents to take any photos of their children ... so babies born in detention have no photos recording their growth and development, something most parents take for granted.

That a society which calls itself civilized continues to countenance the prolonged and indeterminate detention of children in conditions closely resembling those of a high security prison , shocks me profoundly. That this society is Australia, saddens and angers me more than I can say.

Politicians mesmerised by power seem to be unconcerned that, when leaders fail to set and follow ethical standards, public trust is damaged, community expectations diminish and social divisions expand. However, these matters are important to the rest of us. We are a community, not merely a collection of self-interested individuals. Justice, integrity and trust in fundamental institutions are essential social assets and social capital is as important as economic prosperity.

In order to perform our democratic function, we need, and are entitled to, the truth. Nothing is more important to the functioning of democracy than informed discussion and debate. Yet a universal aim of the power-hungry is to stifle dissent. Most of us are easily silenced, through a sense of futility if not personal concern.