More bad judgement on asylum seekers

5 November 2003

Legal fictions and deception have not made Australia more secure, just damaged thousands of lives, according to national human rights group A Just Australia.

"Pretending that a boat hasn't really made it to Australia is an Alice in Wonderland approach. But in a real world, grown up countries have fair and fast systems for working out who needs protection", said Howard Glenn, National Director of A Just Australia.

"People on the boat dragged from Pt Hedland to Christmas Island four months ago are still in detention, still waiting final resolution of claims, with slow expensive processing due to the island's remoteness. The retrospective legal fiction about Melville Island will just create long legal delays, unless the Senate does the right thing and throws it out.

"The nine out of ten boat arrivals in the last few years proved their refugee status, and yet the government continues to pretend that they can return them to Afghanistan or Iraq.

"The real world authorities, like the United Nations, are recommending compensation to the children kept in detention. Hundreds of people remain on Nauru, including around ninety children. Around a hundred children remain in detention in Australia. Hundreds of people have been detained for over two years now.

"The Government continues to make bad calls on what should be a simple set of problems to address", Mr Glenn said.