MEDIA RELEASE

GOVERNMENT’S ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT ENOUGH. ASYLUM SEEKERS STILL WAITING FOR REAL CHANGE

The changes to refugee policy announced by the government are nowhere near enough to satisfy the refugee movement. “The government was desperate to avoid facing the political embarrassment of debating the private members’ bills and has managed to extract a deal with the dissident Liberals that falls a long way short of the promise of those bills,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

“It now hopes that cosmetic changes will be enough for it to weather the crisis that has engulfed the department of immigration in the wake of the Cornelia Rau, Vivian Solon and the asylum request by Chen Yonglin.

“The changes do little more than tinker on the edges of the administration of existing refugee policy when what is needed is a fundamental overhaul of everything from the determination process to its practice of forcible deportation

“The changes do nothing to endure that there will be no more Cornelia Rau’s or people wrongfully deported like Vivian Solon.

“Women and children are already in so-called community detention with organizations like the United Church designated as the detention administrators and enforcers of government policy. While it is a small step forward that fathers will no longer be separated from their families, it is a piece of government double-speak to call such a practice community housing.

“The minister already has wide power discretionary powers – which she doesn’t use. More non-compellable powers will be no guarantee of compassionate policy. There are over 130 asylum seekers who have been detained for three years or longer. Why doesn’t the minister use her existing discretionary powers to free these people? Will the Ombudsman immediately review the cases of those detained for longer than two years?

“How much of a step forward is it for people to face two years of detention before there is any kind of review? What input will refugees and refugee advocates have to this review? It is a review in name only. What is needed is the power of judicial review.

“The Ombudsman can only make a recommendation – which can be ignored. Basic justice demands that asylum seekers have access to judicial review of their detention.

“The prospect of indefinite detention remains, subject only to the minister’s non-compellable discretion.

“ The system of temporary protection visas, a One Nation policy adopted in 1998, remains intact. Will the government grant permanent protection to those Afghans and Iraqis who have been denied further protection and are already on return-pending visas?

“The announced changes give the refugee movement no confidence that the government is genuinely concerned to change the culture of the immigration department. On Wednesday night they attempted to deport a mentally-ill asylum seeker. Chinese government officials have been allowed to question asylum seekers in Villawood detention centre. Around 100 people still languish on Christmas Island and Nauru. A Taiwanese family with five children (including one with an Australian father) received a deportation notice this week

“Before 1992 there was no mandatory detention and refugees were granted permanent protection. Measured against that, the governments changes are very little form and even less substance.”

World Refugee Day rallies around Australia on Sunday 19 June demanding an end to mandatory detention, permanent protection and a Royal Commission into the immigration department are expected to be even larger this year. Hundreds of Chinese will join the rallies protesting at the Australian government’s complicity with human rights abuses in mainland China.

For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713