A Northern Territory Hotel has quietly changed to a detention center for illegal foreign fishermen, while the authorities are struggling with an increase in ships caught in North Australian waters.
Data from the Australian Fisheries Management Authority shows that more than 240 foreign fishermen have been prosecuted in the local court of Darwin since July 2024, an increase of 75 fishermen the 12 months earlier.
On Tuesday, the local Darwin court heard that fishermen were placed in detention in the head of the city of the city, with a few spending weeks under guard in the facility before their hearings.
It came when seven fishermen from a small Indonesian village in Sulawesi appeared in court, after he was arrested by the Australian Defense Force for the Tiwi Islands on 29 June.
Their lawyer Lyma Nguyen said the court that the men came from extreme poverty, without running water in their village, and their level of education was around class two or three.
Lyma Nguyen represented the fishermen, who came from Indonesia, in court. ((ABC News: Matt Garrick))
After the suffering of motor problems in strong wind and dangerous swell, the fishermen sought shelter in mangroves on Melville Island, just over 100 kilometers from Darwin, before their fear.
Mrs. Nguyen said their unintentional ship dropped while it was dragged to Darwin.
Detention seems to be in custody in time ‘
The court heard that the men, who were between 27 and 32 years old, all had been located in the “Frontier Hotel Detention Center” since their arrests.
Mrs. Nguyen told the ABC that the hotel had risen without a special detention facility in the region.
Lyma Nguyen says that the Frontier Hotel has risen after the closure of special immigration -detention centers in Darwin. ((ABC News: Dane Hirst))
“In the past there were immigration -detention centers in Darwin that are now closed, so they have alternative detention places, and they have used the frontier hotel as such an alternative place of detention,” she said.
“It is the same kind of conditions in terms of the loss of freedom; they are still under administrative detention and they are still being monitored.
“As for whether it is a suitable facility … The courts today considered their detention to be related to time in custody that has been operated.”
The costs for taxpayers of using the hotel as a detention center remain unclear. ((ABC News: Dane Hirst))
During the hearing on Tuesday, Judge Greg MacDonald compared the detention standard of the fishermen in the Frontier Hotel with the notoriously overcrowded circumstances in the prisons of the NT and watch houses.
Speaking of one of the men, he said, “Yes, he has lost his freedom, he was held in Australia, but [it’s different]”.
It is unclear how many taxpayers the hotel have risen as a detention facility.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Australian Border Force said: “The costs related to managing a person, either in the community or in detention, are highly dependent on individual circumstances”.
The Frontier Hotel is located on the edge of the Darwin CBD. ((ABC News: Dane Hirst))
After he was found guilty of illegal fisheries, five of the men who appeared in court were handed over good behavioral bonds on Tuesday and are sent back to Sulawesi, with the master of the boat being sentenced to prison.
One fisherman was sentenced to a month behind bars, reduced to his arrest, because this year it was his second illegal fishing in Australian waters.
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