A coalition of international artists has begun a year-long protest against the mistreatment and exploitation of migrant workers building Abu Dhabi's £17bn cultural hub, including the world's largest Guggenheim and a branch of the Louvre.
In the past 15 years it has worked on 120 cases of mistreatment and prompted 655 unlawful decisions to be annulled, organisers say.
He said some of his colleagues seem to "fear Indians are going to take out 500 years of mistreatment on us through this".
The Qataris insist that the increased number of inspectors is starting to have the desired effect, but widespread examples of mistreatment on the ground remain.
In an interview on ABC Radio National on Wednesday Carr said while he was minister, the Australian high commission in Sri Lanka repeatedly said there was no evidence of mistreatment of those who were returning.
He said the high commission in Sri Lanka had tried to determine if there were cases of mistreatment, but there "were no cases they could find".
Similarly, in February this year, Tony Abbott launched an attack on the reporting of the mistreatment claims by saying, "If a very serious allegation was being made that Australian Navy personnel effectively tortured people, well you'd think any responsible news outlet, let alone the voice of Australia – the ABC – would have sought corroboration before broadcasting them".
In July last year Phuketwan published a Reuters story on alleged trafficking and other serious mistreatment of Muslim Rohingya refugees who have fled from Burma by boat, seeking to reach Malaysia and Indonesia.
"There will always be drugs moving, for as long as it is not legal, but I see a lot of weakness, a lot of internal disputes and mistreatment of the local population and that creates problems too".
This simply feeds into negative stereotypes of workers and can catalyse mistreatment of workers by their employers".
Most recently, New York University was in hot water after an investigation by the New York Times exposed mistreatment of migrant workers at its Abu Dhabi campus.
