Australia
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II, represented by Sir Peter Cosgrove
Head of government: Malcolm Turnbull (replaced Tony Abbott in September)

Australia jailed Indigenous people at a disproportionate rate to non-Indigenous people; some children were detained with adults. Australia continued its hard-line policies towards asylum-seekers, including pushing back boats, refoulement, and mandatory and indefinite detention, as well as offshore processing on Nauru and in Papua New Guinea. Those assessed as refugees on Nauru were denied the right to settle in Australia and offered temporary visas or residency in Cambodia. Papua New Guinea had yet to finalize a temporary visa, to be granted to those recognized as refugees, leaving many people in a legal limbo unable to leave Manus Island. Staff and contractors who complained about human rights violations at immigration detention facilities could face criminal proceedings under new legislation. New "security" legislation extended data interception powers and a law was passed stripping dual nationals of their Australian citizenship for terrorism-related activities.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' RIGHTS

Indigenous children were 24 times more likely to be detained than non-Indigenous children. As the age of criminal responsibility in Australia is 10, laws allowed for children aged 10 and 11 to be detained in every jurisdiction in violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Australia detained children with adults in Queensland and provided limited separation between detained children and adult prisoners in at least one detention centre in the Northern Territory.

The Western Australian government widened existing mandatory sentencing by introducing mandatory sentences for aggravated home burglaries for adults and children aged 16 and 17, and by tightening the mandatory sentencing counting rules for non-violent home burglaries.

Indigenous adults were 14 times more likely than non-Indigenous adults to be incarcerated and deaths in custody continued. In May, an Indigenous man in the Northern Territory died of heart failure in a police watch house, three hours after being taken into custody on suspicion of drinking alcohol in a regulated place. The coroner criticized the paperless arrest system under which the man was taken into custody as "manifestly unfair" in its disproportionate impact on Indigenous people, who were more likely to be targeted by the laws. Three prisoners died in two Western Australia prisons during September, November and December, adding to the list of deaths in custody yet to be heard by the Western Australian Coroner. One prisoner died in a New South Wales prison in December.

In June, the Federal government handed responsibility for essential and municipal services in remote Indigenous communities to state governments. The Western Australian Premier stated that up to 150 communities may be closed as a result; widespread protests ensued. Following the protests the Western Australian government initiated a consultation process.

REFUGEES AND ASYLUM-SEEKERS

Australia continued its punitive approach to asylum-seekers arriving by boat by pushing them back at sea, returning them to countries of origin without proper assessment of asylum claims, creating a risk of refoulement, or by transferring them to Australian-run facilities in Nauru or Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.

By 30 November, 926 people were detained in Papua New Guinea and 543 people remained in the "open" facility on Nauru, including 70 children.

In March, the government released an independent review of the Nauru centre, which documented allegations of rape and sexual assault – including of children – as well as cases of harassment and physical assault (see Nauru entry). The Australian government accepted all of the recommendations but despite this in August a Senate report stated conditions were "not adequate, appropriate or safe". In October the Nauru government announced that asylum-seekers would no longer be detained in the centre, which would become an open facility. It also announced that the remaining 600 asylum claims would be processed "within a week". By the end of December processing still had not been completed.

In June, four refugees were transferred to Cambodia as part of a deal signed in September 2014 where Australia paid an additional A$40 million (US$28 million) in aid to Cambodia, as well as a further A$15 million (US$10.5 million) for specific expenses, to relocate refugees there from its offshore immigration processing centre on Nauru. While one of the four agreed to return from Cambodia to Myanmar in October, a fifth man was transferred to Cambodia from Nauru in November.

Also in June, Indonesian officials alleged Australia paid people-smugglers US$31,000 in May to return to Indonesia a boat carrying 65 asylum-seekers. A Senate Inquiry was ongoing at the end of the year.

Australia continued its policy of indefinite mandatory detention, with 1,852 people detained in onshore immigration detention centres as of 1 December. They included 104 children, despite the government's pledge in August 2014 to end the detention of children.

In July the government introduced the Border Force Act 2015, which includes prison sentences for government staff and contractors, including health and child welfare professionals, who speak out about human rights abuses in immigration detention.

It also proposed legislation that would allow immigration detention employees to use force, including lethal force, against any individual in detention, while removing judicial oversight.

In August the government announced that since December 2013 it had pushed back 20 boats, carrying a combined total of 633 people, including one directly to Vietnam in July. In November, another boat carrying 16 asylum-seekers was reportedly pushed back to Indonesia.

In September the government announced that it would resettle an additional 12,000 Syrian refugees in response to the crisis in the Middle East.

COUNTER-TERROR AND SECURITY

Parliament passed legislation stripping those with dual nationality of their Australian citizenship on the basis of suspicion of involvement in terrorist-related activities. Australian dual nationals risked losing citizenship without any criminal conviction and with limited procedural safeguards.

Legislation was passed authorizing the mass surveillance of personal metadata.

INTERNATIONAL SCRUTINY

In November, Australia's human rights record was assessed for the second time under the UN Universal Periodic Review. Australia received criticism for its failure to ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and its failure to address Indigenous incarceration rates. Australia received recommendations to introduce a Human Rights Act and to end mandatory detention of asylum-seekers.

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