An alternative to indefinite mandatory detention of asylum seekers

There is no agreed method for calculating cost but on any basis the cost is great and growing. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission reported various estimates of the costs of the detention system during the 1990s:

• in 1994, according to a parliamentary committee report, $55.64 per person per day at Port Hedland, $58.49 at Villawood and about $200 at other centres
• in September 1997, according to a ministerial statement to Parliament, $161.77 per person per day at Port Hedland and $111.11 at other centres
• in 1998, according to the Australian National Audit Office, $69 per person per day in 1994-95, increasing by more than 50% in the following year to $105 per person per day.

The Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes (NSW) provided a telling comparison of the costs per person per day of detention and of supervised release in the community, as calculated by a NSW parliamentary committee in June 2000:

No immigration detention centre is comparable to a minimum security prison. The cost per person per day would be similar to that in a medium or maximum security prison. The cost of an alternative release option would be more than the costs shown here for the criminal justice system because most convicted persons released under this scheme have their own homes to return to.

Asylum seekers would not and so housing costs would be in addition to those shown. Nonetheless, there remains a very significant difference. Community options are far less expensive.

These estimates were calculated before the so-called Pacific Solution was devised and implemented. The cost of this approach is unknown but it has been estimated at $500 million this year, far more than the disclosed cost of the on-shore system. The alternative model offers real savings to taxpayers as a bonus on top of the more ethical, more humane dimensions.

The alternative approach I have described here is similar to the approaches taken successfully in most other western countries. In Sweden, for example, where this kind of approach has been taken for many years, the average stay in a detention centre is a mere 47 days. One argument against a release scheme is that it will not deter other asylum seekers. But detention solely as a means to deter others is unacceptable and a violation of the Refugee Convention and of human rights law. And in any event there is no evidence that the various deterrent steps taken by Australian governments over the last decade have worked. Another argument is that released asylum seekers will abscond.

Careful assessment before release and appropriate reporting requirements after release will minimise the risk of absconding. Experience in the United States, where release of asylum seekers is routine pending determination of status, is that few abscond. Indeed in one pilot monitoring scheme 95 % met every reporting requirement.

The present situation cannot continue. It is unsustainable on practical grounds. It simply is not working. It is expensive. It is destroying Australia’s good name. It is distorting Australian aid priorities and warping development patterns in small poor Pacific Island states. But far graver than any of these facts, present policy is violating human rights.

Contrary to what is said by many of our national political leaders and many media commentators change towards fairness and decency in refugee policy is possible. It is necessary if we are to restore our integrity in our own eyes and in the eyes of the world. We have the wit to devise a better approach. All it now requires is the will. And a little bit of decency.