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This report is the third in a series of annual reports that are being developed in the lead up to Australia’s second Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in October 2015. Each report identifies important milestones as well as challenges that remain for the protection of human rights in Australia.

This is an important report. It deals with our treatment of children in the most recent wave of boat people seeking refuge and a better life on our shores. It does so in the knowledge that there is a tension created by the community expectation that the Government will defend Australia's security while simultaneously upholding individual rights - the notion of the 'fairgo' for all. The report also challenges the argument that family unity within immigration detention centres is the only way that children's 'best interests' can be protected.

This report makes disturbing reading. It documents numerous breaches by Australia of both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. As a nation that is understandably anxious that the rights of our own children should be respected when they come into contact with the authorities of other countries, it is troubling that between late 2008 and late 2011 Australian authorities apparently gave little weight to the rights of this cohort of young Indonesians.

HREOC’s report, tabled in federal Parliament on 12 May 1998, deals with the policy of mandatory detention of most unauthorised arrivals and the conditions of detention for those detained. The report had its origins in the many complaints received by HREOC from, or on behalf of, people in immigration detention centres.

Multicultural access and equity policy: Respecting diversity. Improving responsiveness.