3 | Key observations and concerns
The Commission was advised that visits were able
to take place between 7am – 9pm each day. Visitors
must apply to visit a detainee, with applications
required to be lodged no less than five business
days in advance for visits by personal visitors,
volunteers delivering approved programs and
activities, religious or spiritual visitors and health
professionals, and no less than one business day
in advance for legal representatives or migration
agents. These application periods can be waived in
limited circumstances, including for emergency or
other compassionate reasons.
The Australian Border Force website provides that
individuals wishing to lodge an application to visit
a detainee can do so either online or through a
paper-based application. The online application
requires individuals to select the location that
they are wishing to visit, but the drop-down menu
does not include all of the hotel APODs currently
in use amongst the locations that are available to
be selected. Instead, the online application advises
to select ‘the facility closest to the location of the
person in immigration detention’ if they are held in
a location that is not listed.
The website advises that a paper-based application
can be lodged by contacting the relevant
immigration detention facility directly, however the
link provided does not include any hotel APODs
amongst the immigration detention facilities that
are listed.59
Finally, the website advises that visiting hours can
be obtained by contacting the relevant immigration
detention facility, but does not list or provide
contact details for any hotel APOD among the
locations that are listed. This makes applying to
visit an individual detained in a hotel APOD or even
determining the visiting hours of a hotel APOD
more difficult than for other immigration detention
facilities.
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While it is accepted that there may be operational
reasons for the locations of hotel APODs not being
listed in the same way as permanent immigration
detention facilities, this should not result in it
being any more difficult for visits to be facilitated.
One way to address this would be to provide a
central telephone and email contact point for all
hotel APODs, in much the same way as telephone
and email contact points are provided for each
individual permanent detention facility. This would
provide a central contact point allowing visitors to
obtain information about visiting hours and other
conditions of entry, and to lodge applications to
visit at hotel APODs.
RECOMMENDATION 10:
The Department should establish
a central contact point for all hotel
APODs (including telephone and email
details) to assist in facilitating visits.
(f) Food
Concerns about the quality of the food provided
at the hotel APODs have been raised in previous
inspection reports,60 as well as in media reports
that have raised allegations of food being served
containing maggots and mould.61 These issues
have also been highlighted by the Commonwealth
Ombudsman, who confirmed that there had been
an incident of maggots being found in the dinner
of a person detained at the Melbourne APOD. The
Commonwealth Ombudsman further reported
that ‘[d]uring our discussions with the Serco staff
who were working at the time of the incident, it
was clear there was insufficient appreciation of