The bill - one of three in a government migration package that garnered late support from the coalition but has been widely criticised by human rights advocates - will go to a vote in the Senate on Thursday before parliament adjourns for the year.
The committee chair, Labor MP Josh Burns, said the Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2024 needed more protections before passing.
The bill needed to incorporate more protections before passing, committee chair Josh Burns said. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)
"Given the absence of sufficient safeguards with respect to this broad power, there is a risk that the powers could be exercised in a manner which is not compatible with the right to privacy, freedom of expression, and the right to protection of the family," said the 75-page scrutiny report tabled late on Wednesday.
It recommended an amendment that ensure the Department of Home Affairs gave detainees access to "digital communication facilities" and "private contact with friends, family and legal services" if their mobiles were seized.
The proposed laws would also give officers in the detention centres broad new powers to strip search detainees without a warrant including the use of sniffer dogs.
"In the absence of legislative protection for effective oversight of these powers there is some risk that in practice their exercise may not comply with the prohibition on degrading treatment or may constitute inhumane treatment in detention," the committee said.
It also noted the risk that children's safety would be compromised as well as privacy rights may be curtailed.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the powers were needed to end a "prison-like" culture.
The Minister for Home Affairs has claimed that new laws expanding search & seizure powers in immigration detention respond to 'calls for action' from parties including — Lorraine Finlay (@lorrainejfinlay) @AusHumanRights.Let's be clear ... the Bill goes far beyond what we recommended, and we do not support it.November 26, 2024
Committee member and independent MP Kylea Tink countered "detention centres are not jails".
Australian Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay also flatly rejected Mr Burke's framing of the bill as a response to a commission report published this year sounding the alarm on drug trafficking and violence in detention centres.
"The Minister for Home Affairs has claimed that new laws expanding search and seizure powers... respond to 'calls for action'... let's be clear ... the bill goes far beyond what we recommended, and we do not support it," she tweeted.
Labor while in opposition had voted against a similar bill in 2020.
After some earlier wrangling whether the migration package would make the final cut of bills to be passed in the senate, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told parliament on Thursday he expected it to be ushered in among more than 30 pieces of legislation.
