Details of new births and cases of clinical depression occurring within Australian detention centres are no longer being formally reported to the Department of Immigration, according to reports.
A document obtained under freedom of immigration laws by Human Rights Watch appears to provided updated instructions to employees of detention service provider Serco on how to report events occurring within detention facilities to immigration department officials, the Guardian reports.
Under the guidelines, dating from March this year, cases of child birth and clinical depression have been removed as "incidents" for reporting. New classifications have also been added, including accident, injury or assault of a minor; and sexual assault.
Both the minister for immigration and border protection, Scott Morrison, and Serco representatives have declined to comment to media on this issue.
People-smuggling talks ongoing: Morrison
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Australian and Indonesian authorities are maintaining regular contact on people-smuggling measures despite a breakdown in diplomatic relations, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison insists.
The regional alliance has turned sour in the past week as Indonesia vowed to withdraw from information-sharing arrangements in the wake of spying allegations.
But both nations continue to fight people-smuggling activities, Mr Morrison said.
"Operational-level dialogue has continued the whole way through," he told ABC Radio on Monday.
While there may be a diplomatic stand-off cooperative and productive contact was ongoing between "operational-level people who are doing things on a daily basis".
People smuggling remained a crime in Indonesia and authorities there continued to combat the practice, Mr Morrison said.
"(Indonesian) Immigration officials have said they've had no direction to cease what they are already doing in terms of operating under their own laws."
There have been no reported boat arrivals since the diplomatic row broke a week ago.
There has been a "massive" decline in the number of asylum-seeker vessels detected en route to Australia, Liberal MP Steve Ciobo told Sky News in support of the coalition's border security policy.
"We've seen nearly a 79 per cent decline in arrivals," he said, citing figures which compared the eight weeks before and after the September election.
But opposition MP Bernie Ripoll said the government had failed on its promise to stop the boats.
"They've slowed, yes, but they haven't stopped," he said.
He attributed the drop in boat numbers to Labor's tough measures introduced before the election which are "finally bearing fruit".
