Oz:Mentally ill woman wrongly locked up in detention centre

msolga wrote:

dlowan wrote:

I wonder if this sort of cost may be finally what forces policy change?

There's a thought, Deb!

Maybe these compensation pay-outs will do the trick, when all else has failed? (But then, we're the ones doing the paying, aren't we, through our taxes. )

Yes.

AND we already pay for the detention anyway.


I guess we're just lucky, eh?

dlowan wrote:

msolga wrote:

dlowan wrote:

I wonder if this sort of cost may be finally what forces policy change?

There's a thought, Deb!

Maybe these compensation pay-outs will do the trick, when all else has failed? (But then, we're the ones doing the paying, aren't we, through our taxes. )

Yes.

AND we already pay for the detention anyway.


I guess we're just lucky, eh?

Yep.

Us & the detainees!

Let's hope the anticipated change of government will create an entirely different culture, hey?

msolga wrote:

dlowan wrote:

msolga wrote:

dlowan wrote:

I wonder if this sort of cost may be finally what forces policy change?

There's a thought, Deb!

Maybe these compensation pay-outs will do the trick, when all else has failed? (But then, we're the ones doing the paying, aren't we, through our taxes. )

Yes.

AND we already pay for the detention anyway.


I guess we're just lucky, eh?

Yep.

Us & the detainees!

Let's hope the anticipated change of government will create an entirely different culture, hey?

I am ashamed to say I believe it is essentially bi partisan.






The ALP have been less happy to detain CHILDREN, however.

16 months in Baxter detention centre: that'll cost you $160,000

Kasian Wililo is a NSW resident with a wife, two young children and a full time job. He's also a former detainee of Baxter Detention Centre. In May this year Mr Wililo's wife Emily opened a letter from the Immigration Department. It was a bill for $161,684.60.

The letter stated that the sum was the total expense incurred by Mr Wililo's stay in Baxter -- with an order for the sum to be paid in 30 days (read here and here):

Mr Wililo is not alone. As of the 30 June 2008, there were 386 persons with active detention debts amounting to $7,705,576, according to Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) spokesperson Sandi Logan.

Any former detainee not granted a Permanent Protection Visa or Humanitarian Visa is billed for their time in detention, and any costs associated with their subsequent deportation.

According to Logan, "... the department has a standardised cost charged per day for detention across all mainland facilities. $125.40 a day is now the standardised rate charged across all mainland centres. The daily maintenance amount is never more than the actual cost of detention incurred by the Commonwealth."

The overall detention costs include the cost of moving the detainee between different detention locations and the daily maintenance cost of detention, made up of expenses such as food and accommodation.

After fleeing Tanzania, Kasian Wililo arrived in Australia as an asylum seeker in 2002. He was held at the Maribyrnong detention centre in Melbourne from Jan 2003 and then Baxter (Port Augusta) detention centre from March 2004 to June 2005.

Mr Wililo was refused a permanent protection visa, but at the Immigration Minister's intervention was granted an onshore temporary spouse visa last September, after marrying Emily Ackland. Kasian met Emily while she was volunteering at Maryibynong detention centre, and they were eventually married inside Baxter Detention Centre.

Mr Wililo is still waiting on approval for a permanent spousal visa. His May invoice stated that his outstanding debt would mean the criteria to be met in order to obtain a permanent visa would be "affected adversely."

Crikey understands that there are a handful of couples in Kasian and Emily's situation -- former detainees who have married Australian citizens and been granted temporary spousal visas only to be subsequently billed for their detention stay, with permanent visa approval subject to payment.

In April the Commonwealth Ombudsman Professor John McMillan questioned the value of making asylum seekers pay for their time in detention.

Dear Squatters,

For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share ...

There are many Australians who were shamed by the Howard Government's treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. It was not so much that people desperate enough to travel half the world at great personal peril and in hardship were welcomed with mandatory detention, or that their prisons were located in some of the most god-foresaken corners of the continent ... what galled many above all that was the way in which the policy was implemented cynically for political advantage.

There's a double edge to that of course: for a government to turn the detention of men, women and children to a vote winner it must first tap something latent and obnoxious in the public subconscious. Let's hope that something is changing there in the Australian soul.

But perhaps not. Today we learn that the Australian Government, never mind that its popularly elected face has changed, is seeking to recover money from former detainees. More than $7 million is outstanding. What is this money for? It is the bill for their mandatory detention. It's enough to make you stitch your lips.

The Germans have just had Cornelia Rau locked up for about 8 weeks, as well!

In Hamburg!