Human rights groups have made the case for the child abuse royal commission to investigate Australia's immigration detention centre in Nauru, following new reports of endemic sexual violence, abuse and self-harm at the facility.
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The Australian Council for International Development, Human Rights Law Centre and Australian Council of Social Services have released legal advice asserting that the royal commission has the power to examine the Nauru detention centre, challenging commissioner Peter McClellan's previous insistence that it did not.
The advice and accompanying documents were first sent to the royal commission in July last year, following the release of the Australian Human Rights Commission's Forgotten Children report into minors in immigration detention. After 12 months, the commission has not acted on that advice, the advocates said.
"It has been a year and we haven't seen any change in the commission's approach," HRLC director Hugh de Kretser told Fairfax Media.
The legal advice was made public on Friday as part of a fresh attempt to expand the commission's remit, following Guardian Australia's publication of 2000 incident reports from Nauru detailing sexual violence, child abuse and self-harm.
Mr de Kretser said the legal opinion set out that Australia's control and financing of the detention centre meant it was an institution that would fall within the royal commission's terms of reference, despite being overseas.
"The commission can't travel to Nauru and compel witnesses and documents," he told Fairfax Media. "But it can compel the Australian government and its contractors in Australia to provide evidence and answer questions about how it has responded to child abuse allegations in the centre which it established in Nauru."
In May last year, Justice McClennan confirmed in a letter to Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young that the commission was considering an investigation of allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia's mainland immigration detention centres.
But in the same letter, previously obtained by Fairfax Media, Justice McClennan said the commission's view was that "it cannot investigate events that occur within another country".
Mr de Kretser said the legal advice published on Friday suggested that was not correct. In particular, the advice pointed to Australia's very first royal commission in 1902, which investigated deaths and illnesses of Australian soldiers returning from the Boer War in South Africa aboard the SS Drayton Grange.
"It would be an anathema if Australia could avoid scrutiny by shifting institutions offshore," Mr de Kretser said.
Fairfax Media sought comment from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The commission was established by the Gillard government to examine institutions such as churches and school systems, and is due to report by the end of 2017.
The Forgotten Children report found 128 children in immigration detention had engaged in acts of self-harm, including attempted suicide, in the 15 months to March 2014. It also concluded that prolonged detention had profound negative impacts on minors' mental and emotional health.
The then Abbott government derided the report as politically-timed and called for the resignation of Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs. But earlier this year, the Turnbull government was able to declare that no children remained in mainland immigration detention.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton on Thursday sought to play down the Guardian's "Nauru files", arguing that asylum seekers were deliberately self-harming in an attempt to get to Australia.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull promised the reports would be examined to see if any complaints had not been sufficiently addressed.
