Why we need to Clean Up Our Act!

November 2007

Australia’s policy on asylum seekers and refugees needs fixing, urgently. While there have been small steps forward in some areas, there have been great leaps backwards in others.

• Government policies still allow for the indefinite detention of children in offshore centres with little to no access to legal help.
• We still grant genuine refugees only temporary protection visas, keeping them separated from their families.
• We still lock-up asylum seekers with no security assessment of whether that is necessary.
• We still have a visa decision system that is biased with limited review or oversight.
• We still can do so much better.

The current Migration Act has caused untold suffering: children growing up in detention, stateless people being driven to despair from 6-7 years of long-term detention, mental illnesses caused by detention, asylum seekers sent back to danger and many asylum seekers living destitute in the community with no right to work or financial assistance. All this at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $1billion wasted on the Pacific Solution and more millions wasted on needless detention on the mainland.

We can protect our borders and Australian values at the same time.  We believe Australia can deliver border security in a humane way that is not at the expense of the human rights of asylum seekers fleeing persecution.

Background Brief - the 5Ds of Asylum Seeker issues

Asylum Seeker issues can be broken down into 5 broad issues:

• Deterrence - trying to stop asylum seekers from reaching Australia by repelling boats at sea or sending them to offshore processing camps and centres.
• Detention - keeping people who have not committed any crime locked up when there is no compelling health or security reason to do so... and at far greater tax-payer expense.
• Determination of visa status - the process by which people's claims for protection are assessed.
• Deportation and removals - are poeple removed to situations of danger?
• Durable Solutions - working towards solving the problems at the source.

You can read our policy proposals on the our policy goal page. To get more background information on the issues, read the issues in depth page.