The Immigration Department will refer the actions of a West Australian journalist to the Press Council after she entered an asylum seeker accommodation facility and questioned a survivor of the Christmas Island boat tragedy.
Jane Hammond’s piece, titled “Survivor: Crew Cut Engine”, appeared in The West Australian on Monday and featured several comments attributed to a female survivor of last week’s foundering, whose husband and son remained unaccounted for. It also appeared to reveal extraordinary insensitivity on the part of the Immigration Department, with a spokesperson saying the woman “would have to telephone the department’s 24-hour information line for details of her husband and son”. Crikey is not referring to the woman by name given she may seek asylum in Australia and identifying her may have repercussions for any family in her country of origin.
The Immigration Department is deeply unhappy with both aspects of the story, saying the hotline is intended for members of the public who may know someone on the vessel and want information, not survivors themselves. But it is Hammond’s conduct that is particularly under challenge.
According to the department, Hammond spoke to the woman after she accompanied a Middle Eastern man to the accommodation facility in Perth where the woman, who says her husband and son were aboard the boat, is recovering. The man claimed to be a “close friend” of the woman’s family and was admitted to the facility, accompanied by Hammond, who was wearing a head scarf. The man, who would act as Hammond’s interpreter, is said to have filled in the admission form for both of them and did not identify Hammond as a journalist or an employee of The West Australian in the section requiring details of her occupation and employer. Despite this lapse, they were admitted by officials at the facility to the woman’s private quarters, rather than the general visiting area of the facility, in recognition of the woman’s circumstances.
It was there that Hammond began interviewing the woman, with the man interpreting, until a guard nearby observed her tape recorder and asked her to identify herself. At that point, Hammond stated that she was a journalist, and was ordered to leave.
Immigration’s complaint to the Press Council will be that Hammond’s piece breached Principle 5 of the Council’s State of Principles, that “information obtained by dishonest or unfair means, or the publication of which would involve a breach of confidence, should not be published unless there is an over-riding public interest” and clause 8 of the MEAA code of ethics, which requires that journalists “identify yourself and your employer before obtaining any interview for publication or broadcast. Never exploit a person’s vulnerability or ignorance of media practice”. Given Hammond did not, in the department’s account, personally misrepresent herself and did identify herself as a journalist when eventually asked, the complaint might make for some fine distinctions over the meaning of terms such as “dishonest” and “unfair”.
Following the publication of the story, Immigration asked The West Australian to acknowledge what it considered a breach of ethics but was rebuffed. “In light of the newspaper’s refusal to publicly acknowledge this serious breach of ethics and principles, or to take any action against its journalist, we have no choice now but to refer the matter to the Australian Press Council,” said departmental spokesman Sandi Logan. “The deceit which was used to gain access to our client, the various acts of omission and commission, and then the refusal to concede this was a gross invasion of our client’s privacy in the absence of any overriding public interest is one of the worst displays of unprofesssionalism in my many years as a journalist (and current/long-standing MEAA member), and as a public affairs practitioner.
“We simply asked The West Australian to publicly acknowledge that in their report, their reporter obtained access to the survivor’s place of immigration detention without full disclosure of the nature of her visit, her profession or her employer.”
The paper’s acting editor Michael Beach did not respond to Crikey’s invitation to comment yesterday, but on Tuesday told Crikey no action would be taken against Hammond.
Its time for an open discussion about all the privacy and secrecy around asylum seekers. Immigration use privacy to deny access to people wanting to advocate on behalf of asylum seekers AT THE REQUEST OF ASYLUM SEEKERS.
Denial of access to medical records even when a person writes an authorisation for the medical recrds to be passed on so that an advocate can try to to get them decent medical care.
The total lockout of media means that many Australians believe that asylum seekers have two heads, are criminal, terrorist or just evil people.
The “no humanising images” policy needs review.
Of course there are reasons why vulnerable people unaccustomed to western media need protection but when is this protection more like persecution by immigration. Many people released with visas tell us that they are told by Immigration NOT to speak to the media. After detention they have little idea of what freedom they have to FREE SPEECH.
Currently the detwention centres are virtually uncontactable. Sometimes you make it through the multiple obstacles of one phone for 435 people, or phone numbers that are actually Ring Out lines only, or desks with bozos who cant read a list of names, or reception desks with no DATA base, or needing to have aBoat number for the person becasue they are numerically listed by boat number eg GLI 889 .
Phones are listed but they seldom work or are answered.
can I just say, as an unelected and totally unrepresentative spokesperson for the population of Western Australia, that we are all thoroughly embarrassed by that woeful excuse for a newspaper
It was a well presented and timely article based on an interview with one of the passengers. Until this article appeared the emphasis in the media was on why didn’t the Australian Navy rescue the boat and its passengers and crew. As soon as this article appeared in the West, the debate changed to the skipper’s responsibility for his crew and his passengers.
Hammond’s article explained why the boat ended up on rocks on the north side of the island during a cyclone and why it didn’t put the boat into gear and motor away from the rocks.
The unnamed passenger was caught up in a catastrophe and has every right to tell her story.
Good on Jane Hammond.
By all means refer this matter to the Press Council but don’t expect any action. The Press Council may or may not look into it, it may even find the West/Hammond acted inappropriately , but if so the only thing the West would have to do is print the Press Council finding. The Press Council is a toothless tiger as far as enforcement is concerned.
The Press Council is an organ of the newspapers, it is not a Govt agency.
The question the press council needs to answer is whether or not the journalist disclosed her occupation and identity to the asylum seeker. From the presence of the interpreter and the tape recorder, it seems entirely possible and even likely.
Therefore there is no case to answer. If the immigration department requires this disclosure to them, at which point they would deny access, then it is probably infringing on her freedoms and rights itself. After all it may accommodate asylum seekers but it doesn’t own them. This is most likely another case of bureaucrats hiding behind privacy laws to control information flows it might find embarrassing.
The thing I find frustrating is that most of the significant information about what happened is already known but will not be disclosed until the spin machine of the powerful has selected the most appropriate time and slant, probably mid next year.