Detainees described a lack of private spaces within hotel APODs (particularly for those individuals who were required to share rooms) as posing a significant barrier to receiving confidential legal assistance, as well as engaging with other services (including medical or counselling services). Those working with detainees highlighted examples such as there being a lack of facilities to allow for inperson meetings at the APODs, no private spaces for detainees to take telephone calls, and difficulties in obtaining consent forms within appropriate timeframes. The Commission’s Human rights standards for immigration detention states that detainees must be able to receive regular visits from family and friends, and that such visits must take place ‘in an appropriate place and in private’.57 The Commission was advised that visits were stopped in all immigration detention facilities (including hotel APODs) for a period of time during the COVID-19 pandemic. While visits had resumed by the time of the inspection, there were still some additional restrictions that applied in line with guidance provided by national and state health authorities.58 It is the responsibility of the Department of Home Affairs to ensure that every person detained in immigration detention is afforded ‘all reasonable facilities … for obtaining legal advice or taking legal proceedings in relation to his or her immigration detention’.56 In light of the practical barriers that were consistently raised with the Commission, it is recommended that further strategies be explored to ensure that individuals held in hotel APODs are able to regularly access and engage with the legal assistance and other services they are entitled to. The Commission was advised that, at the time of the inspection, all visits for individuals detained at the Brisbane APOD were being conducted at BITA, with some exceptions for scheduled visits by the Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma (QPASTT) in circumstances assessed to be high-risk. The fact that visits were not able to be regularly facilitated at the hotel APOD itself creates an additional barrier to visits, with detainees being required to undertake transportation to BITA in order to receive any visitors. RECOMMENDATION 8: The Department should implement strategies to ensure that people detained in hotel APODs are able to regularly access and engage with the legal assistance and other services they are entitled to, in a manner that respects the confidentiality of these services. RECOMMENDATION 9: Visits should routinely be facilitated at the detention facility in which the detainee is ordinarily held, other than in exceptional circumstances. The Use of Hotels as Alternative Places of Detention (APODs) • 2023 • 33