Methven, Elyse; Vogl, Anthea --- "We will decide who comes to this country, and how they behave: A critical reading of the asylum seeker code of behaviour" [2015] UTSLRS 10; (2015) 40(3) Alternative Law Journal 175

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We will decide who comes to this country, and how they behave: A critical reading of the asylum seeker code of behaviour [2015] UTSLRS 10 (3 September 2015); (2015) 40(3) Alternative Law Journal 175

Last Updated: 9 March 2017

This work was first published in

Alternative Law Journal 40(3) 2015


WE WILL DECIDE WHO COMES TO THIS COUNTRY, AND HOW THEY BEHAVE

A critical reading of the asylum seeker Code of Behaviour

ANTHEA VOGL and ELYSE METHVEN

This article conducts a close reading of the asylum seeker Code of Behaviour (‘the Code’), which commenced operation in December 2013. The Code applies to all so-called ‘illegal maritime arrivals’¹ who apply for or seek to renew a bridging visa.² In order to access a bridging visa, this group of asylum seekers must sign the Code, and are thereafter bound by a ‘list of expectations’ about how to behave at all times while in Australia. Its expectations range from obeying the law, to refraining from spreading rumours, spitting or swearing in public, or persistently irritating anyone. Signing and adhering to the Code is a precondition for an asylum seeker either to be released from detention or to remain in the community. Despite being in force for nearly two years, the introduction and implementation of the Code have received little media attention or academic scrutiny.

In this article we argue that the Code is a rhetorical tool, aimed at positioning asylum seekers arriving by boat outside the imagined borders of ‘the Australian community’. In addition to critiquing the Code’s rhetorical impact, we highlight the negative impact of the Code on the lives of asylum seekers, and its glaring absence of procedural fairness guarantees. The article firstly outlines the genesis of the Code, the substance of its provisions, and consequences for breaching them. Following this, it conducts a critical analysis of the Code’s enforcement and operation to date, with reference to data obtained from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (‘DIBP’) under a Freedom of Information (‘FOI’) request. The final part of the article evaluates the practical and rhetorical impact of the Code.

Our central argument is that the Australian Government has exploited the Code primarily as a rhetorical tool; it depicts us — ‘the Australian community’, as potential victims, threatened by them — ‘illegal maritime arrivals’. The Code propagates a sentiment of ‘paranoid nationalism’ among the Australian public, constructing asylum seekers as pre-criminal, racialised ‘others’, who must assimilate and adopt imagined standards of Australian civility.³ While the Code functions rhetorically to persuade the public to fear and resent asylum seekers, it also has harmful material effects. The Code subjects asylum seekers to the ongoing threat of surveillance and policing of its terms by ‘all members of the community’. And given the severe consequences of breaching the Code, including income reduction and incarceration, it increases the insecurity already experienced by asylum seekers on bridging visas.

Genesis and operation of the Code

In December 2013, then DIBP Minister, Scott Morrison announced that asylum seekers living in the community would be subject to a new code of behaviour.⁴ Morrison had floated the idea of a ‘behaviour protocol’ for asylum seekers as early as February 2013. At that time, Morrison as Shadow Minister for Immigration participated in weekly chats with talkback radio host Ray Hadley on 2GB radio (these chats persisted while Morrison was DIBP Minister from September 2013). Responding to Hadley’s questions relating to an alleged indecent assault of a Macquarie University student in her dormitory by a Sri Lankan asylum seeker, Morrison stated:

There should be a behaviour protocol that anyone released in the community has to adhere to. There should be a complaints mechanism ahh for people who are concerned about things to be able to report these. Those incidents should be reported; they should be transparent. I mean there are no checks and balances here Ray. They just dump people in the community because they can’t control the borders. It’s all, it’s all no care, and all no responsibility.⁵

The Code itself was introduced under the Migration Amendment (Bridging Visas – Code of Behaviour) Regulation 2013 (‘the regulation’) and commenced on 14 December 2013. The Explanatory Statement to the Code states that it will make asylum seekers who receive a visa due to an exercise of the Minister’s powers ‘more accountable for their actions’.⁶ A copy of the Code quietly appeared on the DIBP’s website in February 2014. In June 2014 Greens Senator Hanson-Young moved an unsuccessful motion to disallow the regulation.⁷
The outcomes for breaching the Code are highly punitive and operate in ways that extend beyond the criminal law. Prior to the Code’s introduction, an asylum seeker in the community charged with a criminal offence was returned to detention, while Australian criminal courts determined the matter.⁸ And asylum seekers were not subject to additional ‘behavioural standards’ that did not apply to the community at large.

Now, if the Code (including any Australian law) is deemed to be breached, income support may be reduced or stopped, an existing bridging visa may be cancelled and an asylum seeker may be either detained or transferred to an offshore detention centre. Media
coverage since the killing of 23 -year-old Iranian asylum seeker Reza Berati in February 2014 has exposed the intolerable conditions in the Manus Island detention centre,⁹ and yet Manus Island is one of the places asylum seekers may be sent under the Code.

The Explanatory Statement to the Code states that one ‘identified outcome’ for breaching the Code is the ‘separation of the family unit’. It provides that where ‘a family member refuses to sign the Code’, that family member will be held in detention, while other members of the person’s family who have signed the Code, or who are under 18 years of age, will be granted bridging visas.¹⁰ The government has recognised that such a separation might breach a number of human rights, including the rights to security of the person, freedom from arbitrary detention, and respect for the family and children. On this issue, the government has said:

The Minister has the ability at any time to consider granting the person a visa under his personal powers if he considers it is appropriate. The rights relating to family and the best interests of the child would be taken into account as part of the decision as to whether to exercise the discretion to cancel the visa, and balanced against the seriousness of the breach of the Code, or consequences if the person refused to sign the Code.¹¹

It is therefore entirely up to the Minister’s discretion as to whether he will separate children from family members who refuse to sign the Code. This is a worrying proposition given the documented failure of the government to prioritise the welfare of asylum seekers under the age of 18.¹²

What are the terms of the Code?

There are a number of points to make about the Code’s terms. Firstly, the Code is prefaced with the following sweeping statement:

The code does not contain all the conditions and duties under Australian law of people granted a bridging visa. By signing the code you agree to behave according to values that are important to the Australian society while working towards the resolution of your immigration status.

The Code does not explicitly elaborate on the content of these important ‘values’. It does, however, note that Australia is ‘a free and democratic country where men and women are equal’ and that ‘[p]eople are expected to show respect for one another and not to abuse or threaten others’.

The Code then details a list of six expectations regarding how asylum seekers must behave ‘at all times’ while in Australia. The list of expectations is separated into what asylum seekers must do, and what they must not do. Asylum seekers firstly ‘must not disobey any Australian laws’, including road laws. Secondly, asylum seekers ‘must not make sexual contact with another person without that person’s consent, regardless of their age.’ They also must not engage in any kind of ‘criminal behaviour’.

Asylum seekers subject to the Code must co-operate with ‘all reasonable requests’ of the Department. These include cooperating with Departmental requests regarding the resolution of the asylum seeker’s status; their presentation to the Department when required; and their provision of identity documents. The asylum seeker also must not refuse to comply with any health undertaking or direction by the Department to undertake treatment for a health condition for public health purposes.¹³

The Code also creates a number of vague public order-type breaches. It stipulates that an asylum seeker must not ‘harass, intimidate or bully any other person’. Also, an asylum seeker must not:

engage in any anti-social or disruptive activities that are inconsiderate, disrespectful or threaten the peaceful enjoyment of other members of the community.

The Code defines ‘anti-social’ as an action that is ‘against the order of society’ and may include spitting or swearing in public, or other actions that people might find offensive. ‘Bullying’ is defined as including anything from attacking someone verbally or physically, to spreading rumours, or excluding someone from a group or place on purpose.

The government, in a Human Rights Compatibility Statement, has recognised that these broad provisions — banning swearing, spreading rumours or being ‘inconsiderate’ — could restrict asylum seekers’ rights to freedom of opinion and expression under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘the ICCPR’). The government found that the restrictions were nonetheless justified on the grounds of the ‘express limitation’ in Article 19 for the purposes of ‘national security, public order, public safety, public morals and the protection of the human rights of others.’¹⁴

Asylum seekers are already bound by Australian criminal law, and so the Code’s stipulation that asylum seekers must not engage in criminal behaviour is unnecessary. The rhetorical effect of this is discussed below. The practical effects include that asylum seekers may be punished for alleged criminal law breaches before they are found guilty in an Australian court; breaches will be adjudicated in a manner at variance with the processes of the criminal justice system; and it is unclear what effect an asylum seeker’s breach of the Code will have in any related criminal proceedings.¹⁵ Additionally, the Code’s vague terms, such as the requirement that asylum seekers must not ‘harass, intimidate or bully any other person or group of people or engage in any anti-social or disruptive activities’ are reminiscent of public order crimes that already exist throughout Australia, including prohibitions of ‘offensive language’ and ‘offensive behaviour’ in a public place.¹⁶ Legal academics have long criticised offensive language and offensive behaviour crimes for their vague wording, presumption of a ‘community standard’, and criminalisation of everyday behaviour.¹⁷ Indigenous Australians, people who are homeless, and people with a mental illness are statistically more likely to have their behaviour policed and be charged with these offences. ¹⁸ The Code adds asylum seekers to this list of marginalised and criminalised groups, with fewer safeguards and serious sanctions. And unlike existing public order crimes, which at least have been the subject of judicial interpretation, there has been no indication as to whether the DIBP will rely on legal precedent to interpret terms such as ‘anti-social’ or ‘offensive’. It remains unclear whether, for example, Departmental decision-makers must judge offensiveness according to the perspective of the ‘reasonable person’ as stipulated in Worcester v Smith [1951] VicLawRp 43; [1951] VLR 316, or whether they should have regard to common law understandings of disorderly conduct as more than conduct that is ‘sufficiently ill-mannered, or in bad taste, to meet with the disapproval of well-conducted and reasonable men and women’; the conduct must also ‘warrant the interference of the criminal law’.¹⁹

The Code is also silent on whether it will uphold a fundamental principle of criminal liability that, in addition to proving the relevant conduct element for an offence (the actus reus), the prosecution must prove that the mental element (mens rea) existed at the time of the relevant conduct. As Brennan J stipulated in the High Court case He Kaw Teh v R:

It is now firmly established that mens rea is an essential element in every statutory offence unless, having regard to the language of the statute

and to its subject-matter, it is excluded expressly or by necessary implication.²⁰

The Code’s ‘expectations’ are not ‘offences’ as such, however given the breadth of the Code, and the seriousness of its sanctions

— including visa cancellation, and sending ‘offenders’ to offshore detention centres — it would be grossly unfair for asylum seekers to be so severely punished for ‘unwitting’ breaches of its provisions.²¹ We therefore argue that the presumption of mens rea should apply to the Code’s expectations, so that the DIBP (the ‘prosecutor’ and ‘judge’ in such cases) must prove that the asylum seeker intended or recognised the possibility that their behaviour was anti-social, disruptive or offensive. Unfortunately, as decisions are made at a Departmental level, without public scrutiny, we may never know what legal principles, if any, are followed in determining breaches of the Code.

In sum, the Code’s expectations in regards to ‘anti-social behaviour’ are incoherent and disturbingly broad, and there are glaring gaps as to how the Code’s contents will be interpreted. If the Code had been introduced via reform of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth), rather than through subordinate legislation, there would at the very least have been greater scrutiny of the significant issues raised by its enforcement and interpretation. The Code, however, continues a trend within migration law and policy of the expansion of executive power and the use of subordinate legislation to introduce substantive reform. This is all the more concerning given the absence of procedural guidelines on how decisions will be made and enforced, as examined below.

Policing and enforcement of the Code

The Code and the regulation under which it was introduced, are silent on how the Code will be administered procedurally. The documents provide no answer as to who can report on, police, or arbitrate ‘breaches’ of the Code. Through our FOI request, the DIBP informed us that it expects to receive allegations through ‘a range of sources’. These sources include ‘members of the public’, ‘service providers’, ‘police services’, and ‘other government agencies’. Thus, by signing the Code, asylum seekers become the recipients of an intrusive, omnipresent gaze of community organisations, law enforcement, Department officials and the general Australian community. Essentially anyone can implicate their asylum seeker neighbours, employees or co-workers if, for example, they spot them uttering the occasional ‘fuck’ or allegedly breaching Australian law. In this way, the Code renders asylum seekers subject to the constant surveillance, discipline and control of Australian citizens and the State.

The punishments for breaches outlined above are particularly severe given that breaches of the Code are adjudicated at a Departmental level. The DIBP’s response to our FOI request made no reference to the availability of any form of merits review of first instance decisions or to procedural safeguards governing decision-making in relation to the Code. The DIBP told us that, where it determines a breach has occurred, ‘the visa holder will be provided with the opportunity to show that the breach did not in fact occur, or provide reasons why their visa should not be cancelled’. Thus it appears that the burden is on asylum seekers to prove their innocence to an unspecified standard of proof, with no apparent access to basic internal or external merits review.

As the Code forbids asylum seekers from engaging in criminal behaviour, it also displaces the fundamental presumption in Australian criminal law that all persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that crimes must be proven ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.²² The Explanatory Statement to the Code recognises this, but argues that the displacement of the presumption of innocence is ‘proportionate to achieving its stated purpose’ being ‘to protect the public’.

A summary of the data accessed through the FOI Request

The article has thus far raised very serious questions and exposed gaps relating to the content and administration of the Code. We sought to fill in some of these gaps, and in May 2014 asked a number of questions of the DIBP, including:

• How many asylum seekers have signed the Code since it came into force?

• How many have been found to be in breach of the Code?

• What kinds of action/sanctions have been taken against those in breach to date?

• Can the DIBP provide a breakdown of which articles of the Code have been breached?

• Can the DIBP provide some specific examples of behaviour ruled to be in breach of the Code?

The DIBP promptly advised us that ‘[t]he information you seek is not publicly available so we cannot assist in this instance.’ We persisted with an extensive FOI request, submitted to the DIBP in June 2014. In addition to the queries above, we asked: who would be compelled to report breaches; would reporting be mandatory; how would decisions about alleged breaches be made; and how would consequences of a breach be determined? After acceding to numerous extensions, on 3 October 2014 we obtained answers to most, but not all of our questions (we were denied access to draft versions of the Code, as well as legal advice obtained by the DIBP regarding the Code’s terms).²³
The FOI data obtained from the DIBP states that since the Code’s implementation to 25 June 2014, over 9000 asylum seekers had signed the Code. But in that time, the DIBP recorded only seven allegations of breaches of the Code, of which three were assessed as in breach and four were assessed as not in breach of the Code.

The four reports against five asylum seekers, where allegations were not upheld, concerned:

• family violence and breach of an intervention order;²⁴
• refusal of assistance from a service provider and ambulance service;

• approach to a person in the street and offer to pay for sex; and

• importation of drugs.

The three reports that were assessed as involving breaches of the Code included:

• assault of a minor;

• unlawful and indecent assault of two minors and trespass; and

• damage to property.

All but perhaps two of these seven allegations are already illegal under existing Australian law. In two of the three upheld breaches, bridging visa cancellation was recommended. One cancellation did not occur as a result of, or under, the Code.²⁵ The other
recommended visa cancellation was pending at the time the data was obtained. In relation to the final breach, the DIBP reported that:

No action was recommended on the third breach as it appeared that the BVE [Bridging Visa E] holder was primarily intending to harm himself, was suffering mental distress and had limited capacity to consider the impact of his behaviour on others.²⁶

Evaluation of the data and the Code

Although the data was obtained over a relatively short period (six months), it reveals the Code’s very limited enforcement and direct impact in that period. The Code’s rhetorical force, and asylum seekers’ fears of inadvertently breaching its ‘confusing’ terms,²⁷ have been much greater than its actual enforcement or practical application.

The Code creates two separate categories: ‘adult illegal maritime arrivals’ and the ‘Australian community’, stating ‘[t]he Australian Government and the community expect non-citizens to abide by the law [and] respect Australian values’. This message is reiterated in the Explanatory Statement to the Code, which states:

The Government has become increasingly concerned about non-citizens who engage in conduct that is not in line with the expectations of the Australian community. The Australian community expects that non-citizens being released into the community on Bridging E (Class WE) visas ... follow the laws and values considered important in Australian society.²⁸

When discussing the Code, the government continued this reconstruction of the Australian community so as to unify some, and exclude others. Minister Morrison repeatedly characterised the Code of Behaviour as being necessary to ‘protect’ the ‘Australian community’, a community represented as under threat from ‘adult illegal maritime arrivals’. The rhetoric in and surrounding the Code naturalised the notion that the Australian community is an exclusive, law-abiding, courteous, and homogenous entity, sharing a uniform set of desirable values. There is no consideration of what these values might entail, or the contradictory image that the nation projects of itself: as a decent, multicultural country that embraces egalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism and ‘mateship’. Meanwhile, asylum seekers are characterised as racialised, uncivilised, social deviants who threaten ‘the peaceful enjoyment of other members of the community’.

The Code and the government appear to construe ‘Australian values’ as an unwritten code of civility that forbids a person from ‘spitting’, ‘swearing’ or ‘spreading rumours’. Meanwhile, such ‘standards’ are not maintained by many members of the Australian community, including Members of Parliament.²⁹ Here, the Code’s perverse preoccupation with the subject of manners is consistent with colonial, civilising discourses, which require racialised ‘others’ to learn from and adopt the manners of their colonisers and reject their primitive and lesser cultures.

The Code perpetuates this ‘us’ versus ‘them’ picture by unnecessarily restating that the criminal law applies to asylum seekers, and through reference to unspecified ‘Australian values’. As well, there is the specific provision about sexual conduct, stating that asylum seekers:

must not make sexual contact with another person without that person’s consent, regardless of their age; you must never make sexual contact with someone under the age of consent. (emphasis in original)

This disturbing and demeaning clause not only constructs asylum seekers as potential criminals — restating the criminal law for their benefit — but also as sexual deviants or sexual ‘others’, who must be educated, warned and controlled.

Critically, in arguing that the Code is a rhetorical tool, we do not wish to downplay the significance of the Code for those subject to it. Although it has been enforced in a limited fashion to date, asylum seekers in the community must necessarily contend with the threat of enforcement and surveillance by all ‘members of the Australian community’. Given the severe consequences of a breach, including income reduction and reincarceration, the Code potentially has extreme material effects and worsens the precarity already experienced by those on bridging visas.

Conclusion

This article has argued that the material consequences of the Code are of serious concern: the Code itself increases the insecurity and precarity of asylum seekers in the community on bridging visas, whose ability to secure work is already undermined by their temporary status; it renders asylum seekers subject to a further and relentless form of surveillance; and finally, the Code’s processes for alleging, adjudicating and punishing breaches are not publicly stipulated and lack the most basic procedural fairness safeguards.

The article has also called attention to one of the troubling ideas underpinning the Code — that the Australian community needs protection from asylum seekers. Its construction of asylum seekers as dangerous, pre -criminal and deviant inverts reality; the Code perpetuates a myth of Australians being at threat, rather than the undocumented boat arrivals needing protection. Such an inversion of reality ignores the fact that the Australian government has been, and continues to be, a source of mental and physical harm towards onshore and offshore asylum seekers. It is these asylums seekers, and not the Australian people, who are in need of greater protection.

ANTHEA VOGL and ELYSE METHVEN are associate lecturers at the University of Technology Sydney.

© 2015 Anthea Vogl and Elyse Methven

REFERENCES

1. Rather than adopt the government’s label ‘illegal maritime arrivals’, we refer to this group of people as asylum seekers for the remainder of the article.

2. Code of Behaviour for Subclass 050 Bridging (General) visa holders, established under the Migration Amendment (Bridging Visas – Code of Behaviour) Regulation 2013 (SLI 269 of 2013). The Code can be accessed at <https://www.border.gov.au/Forms/Documents/1443.pdf>.

3. Ghassan Hage, Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for hope in a shrinking society (Pluto Press, 2003)

4. Migration Amendment (Bridging Visas – Code of Behaviour) Regulation 2013 (Cth); see also ‘Operation Sovereign Borders

Press Conference’, The Guardian (online), 24 December 2015 <http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/dec/24/operation-sovereign-borders-update-transcript> at 10–12.

5. Interview between Ray Hadley and (then) Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, 27 February 2013, 2GB Radio (at 15.10 minutes).

6. Explanatory Statement, Migration Amendment (Bridging Visas – Code of Behaviour) Regulation 2013 (Cth) <http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2013L02102/Explanatory%20Statement/Text> .

7. Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, Senate, 14 July 2014, 4860 (Sarah Hanson-Young).

8. See Bridging Visa E (Class WE), Condition 8564 (no criminal conduct); introduced by the Migration Amendment (Subclass 050 and Subclass 051 Visas) Regulation 2013.

9. Emma Griffiths, ‘Reza Barati death: Senate committee report says violence at Manus Island was “eminently foreseeable”’, ABC News (online), 14 December 2014 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-11/violence-at-manus-eminently-foreseeable-senate-report/5960752> .

10. Explanatory Statement, above n 6.

11. Ibid.

12. See, eg, Australian Human Rights Commission, The Forgotten Children: National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention (2014).

13. See Code of Behaviour, above n 2; and Explanatory Statement, above n 6.

14. Explanatory Statement, above n 6.

15. It is unclear, eg, whether an asylum seeker may be punished both under the criminal law and under the Code for the same conduct, or whether the principle of double jeopardy will apply to breaches of the Code. It is also unclear whether ‘evidence’ considered by the Department when determining breaches of the Code will be admissible in criminal proceedings.

16. See, eg, ss 4 and 4A of the Summary Offences Act 1988 (NSW) (offensive behaviour and conduct); s 6 of the Summary Offences Act 2005 (Qld) (public nuisance). Similar provisions are found in every state and territory.

17. See Joanne Lennan, ‘The “Janus Faces” of Offensive Language Laws, 1970–2005’ [2006] UTSLawRw 8; (2006) 8 University of Technology Sydney Law Review 118; Luke McNamara and Julia Quilter, ‘Time to Define the Cornerstone of Public Order Legislation: The Elements of Offensive Conduct and Language under the Summary Offences Act 1988 (NSW)’ [2013] UNSWLawJl 20; (2013) 36(2) UNSW Law Journal 534.

18. Chris Cunneen, Conflict, Politics and Crime: Aboriginal Communities and the Police (Allen and Unwin, 2001); Tamara Walsh, ‘Who is the ‘Public’ in a Public Space?’ [2004] AltLawJl 18; (2004) 29(2) Alternative Law Journal 81; Tamara Walsh, ‘Poverty, Police and the Offence of Public Nuisance’ [2008] BondLawRw 12; (2008) 20(2) Bond Law Review 7; Rob White, ‘Indigenous Young Australians, Criminal Justice and Offensive Language’ (2002) 5(1) Journal of Youth Studies 21.

19. Melser v Police (1967) NZLR 437, 444 per Turner J cited in Coleman v Power [2004] HCA 39; (2004) 220 CLR 1 per Gleeson CJ at [11].

20. He Kaw Teh v R [1985] HCA 43; (1985) 157 CLR 523 per Brennan J (He Kaw Teh).

21. ‘The requirement of mens rea is at once a reflection of the purpose of the statute and a humane protection for persons who unwittingly engage in prohibited conduct’, He Kaw Teh, 567–8 per Brennan J.

22. Woolmington v Director of Public Prosecutions [1935] UKHL 1; article 14(2) of the ICCPR states that: ‘Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall have the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law’.

23. The DIBP cited ‘legal professional privilege’ and ‘public interest’ under ss 42 and 47C of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) as reasons for the refusal.

24. This pertained to two Bridging Visa E (BVE) holders.

25. Since the BVE conditions include discretionary grounds to consider visa cancellation where a BVE holder has been charged with or convicted of an offence in Australia or overseas.

26. The DIBP also considered that imposition of a sanction did not appear appropriate or likely to have a positive impact on the BVE holder’s behaviour. We note that despite the absence of procedural guidelines for determining breaches of the Code, this determination evinces consideration both of the asylum seeker’s mental health, as well as their lack of legal capacity to commit a breach due to mental illness.

27. Mohamed Taha and Allan Clarke, ‘Asylum seekers “staying indoors” after signing Federal Government’s code of behaviour’, ABC (online), 29 November 2014 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-29/refugee-code-of-conduct-stressful-asylum-seekers-say/5923700> .

28. Explanatory Statement, above n 6.

29. See, eg, ‘Gillard unfazed by Abbott’s foul mouth’, ABC (online), 11 September 2009

<http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-09-11/gillard-unfazed-by-abbotts-foul-mouth/1425904> ‘Footage of Kevin Rudd swearing released’, ABC (online), 19 February 2012, <www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2012/s3434230.htm>.