Australia finally relaxing mandatory detention - or scam?

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Australia has a policy of mandatory detention for all persons arriving in Australia without legal immigration documents.

This policy was set up (and is, with the difference that the Labor Party does nor support mandatory detention of children under these laws, bilateral) in part to stem the perceived threat of ever greater numbers of illegal immigrants arriving on small, dangerous, boats - after having paid exorbitant prices to people smugglers, who lie to them, and tell them they they will be welcome, or some such.

As well as mandatory detention, the current Australian government has gone to bizarre lengths to defend against this "threat" (partly, it says, out of concern for the poor bastards who risk - and sometimes lose - life and limb in the attempt) - including actually legally excising parts of Australian territory from the country - so that people arriving on popular off shore islands, cannot claim the right to proper processing and succour - but can simply be forced back to sea! It partly does this to attempt to get countries like Indonesia, who have happily passed boat people on to Australia, rather than dealing with themselves, to take responsibility. This sounds sort of good - until you realise that Indonesia is a third world country which has trouble adequately caring for its own people!

These policies have been extraordinarily divisive - though I suspect that a majority of we xenophobic Australians support them - having always had a kind of atavistic fear of Asia overtaking us - and having had the current government fan this unpleasant underbelly psychology to help it ensure re-election. (It is difficult to argue that the numbers of illegals would ever have been a huge problem.)

Currently, the Australian government is doing a little "softening" of these laws.

They say that their policy has been successful - and that the boats have almost stopped arriving (ignoring that refugee numbers in the countrie smost affecting us have fallen worldwide)

Others suspect that they are facing a back bench revolt as revulsion at the policies increases.

Er - you may have picked up that I am a little passionate about this one - and possibly a wee tad biased!

Anyhoo - we Ozzians have long been discussing this matter, and others, on Msolga's Australian Election thread. I figured it was time it had a thread of its own.

Frankly, these laws make me ashamed of my country - and I look with despair to countries like Canada and the US and New Zealand which have far more generous policies.

What do you think? Is the government genuinely relenting a tad, or is is window dressing? If so why? Is there a change in public opinion brewing?

(I will post lots of links and information below - just getting this started)

http://www.safecom.org.au/detention.htm

http://www.chilout.org/

story here Relevant piece

http://www.amnesty.org.au/whats_happening/refugees/resources/fact_sheets/mandatory_detention

http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/html/position_papers/INQUIRY_IMMIGRATION.html

relevant source

Ok - ABC story today - (remember, Americans, Liberal = Conservative in Australia):

Liberal moderates want more detention changes

Federal Liberal MPs who have been pressuring the Government to soften its mandatory detention policy have welcomed its move to release some long-term detainees but are urging it to go further.

For months, a small group of "moderates" has been quietly lobbying the Prime Minister to soften the Government's hard-line policy on mandatory detention.

Yesterday, the Immigration Minister unveiled a new class of visa for the longest-term detainees.

They will now be allowed to live and work in the community.

The conditions attached include reporting regularly to authorities, giving up the right to take any further legal action against the Government and returning to their country of origin as soon as it is possible.

Prime Minister John Howard says the new bridging visa is fair and sensible.

Mr Howard says the changes will not undermine the Government's mandatory detention policy.

"We think it's a fair and a commonsense adjustment of the operation of the policy and it's a sensible and good thing to do," Mr Howard told Southern Cross Radio.

Bruce Baird is one of the Liberal Party backbenchers who has been pushing for change.

He has described the new visa as "progress" and "a small step forward" but he thinks more work needs to be done.

Mr Baird says he understands why Australia's longest-serving immigration detainee, Peter Qasim, has been uncooperative.

Mr Qasim has been in immigration detention for more than six years and Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone says he will not qualify for the new visa because his identity cannot be confirmed.

Mr Baird says he hopes the decision is reconsidered.

"Six-and-a-half years is far too long for anyone - it's far too excessive," Mr Baird said.

"I spoke to him, he's in reasonable shape, but given that length of time it's very difficult. So yes at some stage soon, we hope to see Peter Qasim out."

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Analysis from The Age:

A failure to right a great legal and moral wrong
March 26, 2005

The policy of mandatory detention has not changed. Prime Minister John Howard and his Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, have been at pains to emphasise this point all week. They have presented the pending release of an unknown but limited number of long-term detainees as an administrative adjustment, "a commonsense reaction to a difficult situation", to quote Mr Howard. That difficult situation is the terrible suffering of people who have committed no crime but are incarcerated year after year, with no end in sight, because they cannot be returned to their country of origin and cannot establish refugee claims. Mr Howard said he did not regret his Government's failure to act earlier. "Hindsight is a wonderful capacity," he said, as if the Government had not ignored years of warnings. It has always been clear that injustice and suffering would be the inevitable results of an inherently flawed policy, even before the High Court ruled that an innocent person could be detained for life if necessary.

The Age could not have put it more simply when in 1998, two years into the first term of the Howard Government, it pleaded: "Set the boat people free." The facts about asylum seekers have not changed through the years of politicking and scare campaigns. Asylum seekers are not criminals and most of them pose no threat to security or public safety. People have a right to apply for asylum under international law, which also prohibits arbitrary and unjust detention without trial. Detaining individuals for the purpose of deterring others, which continues to be the Government's shamelessly unprincipled justification for its policy, is a violation of that law. The facts have also exposed deterrence as a false premise: in recent years, as the numbers of asylum seekers around the world have plunged, the decreases for Australia have been little different from those of countries that house such people in the community while their cases are considered.

Politics is the only reason the Government feels bound to stick with a demonstrably inhumane and unjust policy. It took the modest practical problem of a few thousand asylum seekers and manufactured a political crisis by demonising them as a threat to the nation during the 2001 election campaign. How could it 'fess up that there was never much of a threat? Most of them proved to be genuine refugees - since 1999, more than 9000 have been granted protection visas. We are not aware of any harm coming to Australian society as a result of their release, but Australia still insists on putting proven refugees on temporary visas.

Because of the Government's need to protect its huge political investment in the "Pacific solution" of offshore processing, there is also no prospect of relief for 54 detainees who have been on Nauru for more than three years and 38 Vietnamese who have been detained on Christmas Island for 20 months. The Government's review is limited to 115 people, many of them stateless, who have been detained for more than three years - and there is a catch, a big one. They must surrender all rights to appeal and accept deportation immediately the Government says so. Their newly created visas offer better welfare eligibility, but they still inhabit a cruel limbo of uncertainty about their fate.

The longest-serving detainee, Peter Qasim, has been held for nearly seven years because India will not accept him even after he signed deportation papers. Strangely, he appears not to qualify for release at this stage. Senator Vanstone cited his lack of co-operation, which is reminiscent of excuses when it was found Australian resident Cornelia Rau had been wrongfully detained. As we observed then, she unwittingly gave a name and face to the suffering of detainees; the public was able to recognise the injustice and inhumanity of her treatment.

The political fallout, and belated shows of disquiet in Coalition ranks, have forced the Government to come up with a politically expedient solution to the suffering of others, without admitting that it is not only the administration of mandatory detention that is wrong; the whole system is wrong. By definition, human rights are universal, but mandatory detention has created a special category of people who are deemed not to qualify for those rights. Once the issue of asylum seekers was turned into a potent political weapon, Australia tragically lost sight of the reality of the relatively manageable, practical problem of asylum seekers. As a result, it confronts a legal and moral problem of such monstrous dimensions that it threatens centuries-old understandings of human rights, of what is fair, humane and just.

source

Look at the bolded bits - remind anyone else of Guantanamo Bay?

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Reaction from non-government parties:

'No hope' repatriation visa given mixed reception

The Australian Greens and Democrats say a new visa classification the Federal Government has announced today, which will free a small number of detainees, will do little to improve immigration and detention policies.

The Australian Refugee Association, a not-for-profit organisation that helps orientate and support detainees who are able to live in the community, has welcomed the visa.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone says the Government will introduce the visa to allow some detainees to be freed, provided they agree that they will eventually leave Australia.

She says Australia's longest serving detainee Peter Qasim, who has been in detention for almost seven years, will for unspecified reasons not qualify for the new visa.

"I spend six-and-half-years, it is too long for me and there is no hope for me to get out and go back," Mr Qasim said.

"I don't know whether I [will] die here."

Last year Mr Qasim stated that he was willing to return to the disputed Himalayan province of Kashmir but India has resisted.

Tonight he was surprisingly keen to congratulate the Government for offering the bridging visa, when interviewed by ABC Radio's PM.

"Of course this is more than generous, I mean (it is) much better than to be here," he said.

"We are in detention centre, and we are suffering. Unless if we are outside we can working farm and pay the tax and we can do something."

Senator Vanstone says the visa will only apply to detainees who have accepted that they have exhausted all their legal avenues but for reasons out of Australia's control cannot be repatriated.

"I don't consider this as a change in approach, but just a step in a long journey," Senator Vanstone said.
'No hope'

Greens Senator Bob Brown says the visa will simply leave those released in a cruel limbo.

"This is a no hope visa," he said.

"This means that you have no hope of staying in Australia, you're going to be allowed out but you renounce all legal right to fight to stay here.

"It means that if there's future legislation which would change circumstances, you've signed away your legal right to stay here even under those circumstances."

The Australian Democrats say the new visa policy does not go far enough.

Immigration spokesman for the Democrats, Andrew Bartlett, says while the move is welcome, the Government should now consider scrapping the mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

"It shouldn't be an offence of imprisonment simply to seek protection from persecution," he said.

"Regardless of whether or not those claims end up being verified, as long as it's assessed that there's no health or security risk to the general public then people should be allowed out into the community."
Timing questioned

The Federal Opposition says it approves of a new visa classification for some immigration detainees, but has questioned its timing.

Labor's immigration spokesman Laurie Ferguson argues the move is in response to pressure from within the federal Liberal Party.

"I think it's got something to do with activity by some Liberal backbenchers," he said.

"It has an element to do with the fact that people have now been detained many years and therefore the electorate becomes less tolerant of it.

"But it has a lot to do with other contemporary debates where the Government's on the back foot with immigration."

The number of detainees to be released is estimated at 30 by refugee advocates.

Those on the top of the list are likely to include Palestinians, with no right of passage through Israel, and other stateless asylum seekers from landlocked Africa where borders are in dispute.

All of them will have exhausted all legal avenues to get asylum seeker protection.

source

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Australian Immigration Minister, Amanda vanstone, interviewed on changes:

New visa gives more flexibility to minister: Vanstone

AM - Thursday, 24 March , 2005 08:04:42
Reporter: Tony Eastley

TONY EASTLEY: Joining us now is the Immigration Minister, Senator Amanda Vanstone. Good morning Senator.

AMANDA VANSTONE: Good morning.

TONY EASTLEY: What do you see are the problems with keeping people in long-term detention?

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well I think where someone has come here and sought asylum, that matter has been considered, given very fair consideration. They've been through every court and tribunal that they need to go through, and the answer's no – and it follows, whenever there's a question, are you a refugee, some are going to get a yes and some are going to get a no.

If they get a no, if they've come to accept that, that the answer is no, and accept that therefore they have no lawful right to stay in Australia, but for one reason or another, right at the moment we don't want to send them home, then we think we can look at a visa where those people could be in the community rather than in detention.

TONY EASTLEY: Why haven't you come to this option earlier?

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well, not all the people in detention, for example, have yet finished their litigation processes. This is another step, if you like, in the whole process of coping with people who come here in large numbers, unauthorised and unannounced, but it's a visa that will also be available for the compliance cases. You know, people who overstay or work outside their visa conditions, because right at the moment, the Immigration Minister has limited choice.

You can either give people what we call a substantive visa, meaning a proper full-blown visa if you like, or you can give them a current bridging visa that might have work rights.

TONY EASTLEY: But if I can take you back to…

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well can I just answer the point. That's the whole point of this you see. It's giving the Government, through the Immigration Minister, more flexibility. You either have to give someone a visa you don't think that they are entitled to, which is poor administration, or you can let them out on a bridging visa with work rights, but with no support.

Now that's not fair to the NGOs and it's not realistic to imagine that someone who's been detained for two or three years, would necessarily walk out of a detention centre and get a job.

TONY EASTLEY: How many people are eligible …

AMANDA VANSTONE: Hold on. So we have created extra flexibility to deal with this. That's what this visa does.

TONY EASTLEY: How many people are eligible for these new "removal pending bridging visas" as they are awkwardly called?

AMANDA VANSTONE: It is rather awkward, I agree with that. That's impossible to say because it would be a changing pool of people.

TONY EASTLEY: But you've had these cases… they've been in front of you for some time. These people have been in detention for three or more years. There's probably 120 according to some reports. Out of that 120, how many are likely to get these new removal pending bridging visas?

AMANDA VANSTONE: Thanks very much, I understood the question when you first asked it.

TONY EASTLEY: Well you didn't answer it.

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well, I didn't get a chance. You cut me off. If let me answer, sometimes things aren't as simple as, here's a two second answer because it suits the ABC.

There are about, of the boat people we're referring to here, not compliance cases, although the visa is available for them as well, about 115 in detention at the moment. A significant portion of them, about somewhere between 20 and 30, would now have their cases in one way or another, being reassessed. That would take it down to under a hundred.

There'd be a portion of those that would still be in litigation. They would therefore not, at the moment, be available to be considered for this visa. But as they finish their litigation, they would become available. So it's impossible to say at any one time exactly how many people would be able to be considered.

TONY EASTLEY: Some people are saying it could be as little as a dozen?

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well, I don't know how some people are saying that. If I can't give you a direct answer on that today, I don't see how someone who has no access to the files could say that as well. But it may be.

You see the conditions… what I'm seeking here with this visa, is extra flexibility for the Immigration Minister, so that I don't have to give someone a visa I don't think they are entitled to and I don't have to put them out on a bridging visa with work rights when I don't think they can get a job, and to handle the cases of people who say okay, I've had a fair hearing, I recognise that I've got to go. Now, in a large sense, that's up to them.

TONY EASTLEY: Immigration lawyers are sceptical about the changes. They say that the detainees are being forced to sign away their rights of possibly remaining in Australia. Do they have to have exhausted all their legal rights to take up this visa, or can they take it up without exhausting their legal rights?

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well, we're looking as I say, at a category of people who have gone through the legal processes and who agree that they have to go. Now, if a lawyer then turns around and says, well, "oh hold on, you have to agree that you're going to go to get this visa," I'd say, well yes, exactly. That's the point.

People who have been in detention while they've been through all this process, if they've been through it and agree that they've got to go, I say, well if the Government now says, look we can have more flexibility here and you can be in the community. But if lawyers are now saying, well hold on we want this to apply to people who don't agree they have to go, well I'm sorry that's not the basis of this visa.

TONY EASTLEY: Could there be people in detention who are desperate to get out of detention and they'll sign their legal rights away in order to get a temporary bridging visa?

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well look, let me make one thing clear. To the best of my knowledge, Australia under any government has never sent someone back to a place where they don't believe it's appropriate to send them.

Now, it's correct that people have to have concluded that under the process they're in at the moment, or been through, they've lost if you like, they've had the umpires decision and it's no, and that they'll go. But you know, we're not stupid. That's not to say that if there was some dramatic change of circumstance on a countrywide sort of basis that that wouldn't be taken into account for people to make a completely different and fresh application.

TONY EASTLEY: Uniting Church President Dean Drayton is reported as describing long-term detention as cruel. Personally, how do you feel about detaining people for year upon year?

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well, I would prefer a situation of course, where people came in authorised, like for example, the 13,000 refugee and humanitarian entrants that we take in each year, do. That's what I'd prefer.

TONY EASTLEY: Yes, but given that they're here now, how do you feel about that?

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well I believe that people who have come unauthorised and unannounced, should be detained. I support mandatory detention – should be detained until the issue of their status can be resolved.

TONY EASTLEY: Indefinitely?

AMANDA VANSTONE: Well it's not a case of indefinite. It's a case of until their status can be resolved.

TONY EASTLEY: Well you've got people like Peter Qasim who has been here for seven years?

AMANDA VANSTONE: We do have a gentleman by the name of Peter Qasim and he has been in detention for a long time. I've said time and time again that if Mr Qasim wants to give us further information to assist us in identifying him, nothing would please me more.

I mean, does anyone really think a government – and governments naturally want to be popular, they want to be liked. They know sometimes they can't be but they want to be liked – do you think we would willingly choose to keep someone detained if we could honestly identify them and return them to the place from where they came?

TONY EASTLEY: Senator Amanda Vanstone, the Immigration Minister, thanks for joining us on AM this morning.

AMANDA VANSTONE: A pleasure.

source

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Australia finally relaxing mandatory detention - or scam?

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