Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to be able to speak on the release of the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration entitled Immigration detention in Australia: a new beginning: criteria for release from immigration detention. This report is the first of three reports under the inquiry’s terms of reference. This report addresses the criteria that should be applied in determining how long a person should be held in immigration detention, the criteria that should be applied in determining when a person should be released from immigration detention following health and security checks, review mechanisms for ongoing detention, removal practices and detention debts. The second and third reports will be tabled in 2009 and will address alternatives to detention, financial costs, service provision and the infrastructure required to support the immigration detention framework for the future. Currently there are about 280 people in detention in Australia; that is the figure as at 7 November this year.

While this report was largely a bipartisan effort and all members agreed to the 18 recommendations, three members filed a dissenting report expressing their concerns about the appropriate time frame when access to judicial review should be available for detainees, but I will leave those members to record their points of view on this issue. I see this report and its recommendations as part of a continuing process of evolution of Australia’s policy on the processing of unlawful arrivals to our shores.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you may recall that in 2005 the previous coalition government moved to improve the detention process and practice. The coalition provided that the Commonwealth Ombudsman have the obligation to review the circumstances of people held in detention for over two years and to report their advice to the minister. Further in 2005, with bipartisan support, the Howard coalition moved to prevent children and families being held in detention centres and, instead, ensured that children and their families were appropriately housed in residential housing within the community. In this regard I acknowledge the excellent contribution and hard work of the member for Pearce, Mrs Judi Moylan, the then member for Cook, Mr Bruce Baird, and the member for Kooyong, Mr Petro Georgiou, who is here in the chamber today and who is also a member of this joint standing committee. Further, it also should be noted that the previous coalition government moved to close down detention centres. Woomera was closed in 2003, Port Hedland was closed and Baxter was closed in August 2007. I believe that the 18 recommendations in this report further refine this evolutionary progress and, in fairness and equity, seek to establish the important balance of acknowledging the duty of care that the government has to people in the wider Australian community as well as preserving the sovereignty of Australia in maintaining mandatory detention as an essential component of strong border control while at the same time—and I think this is important—acknowledging the basic human rights of unauthorised arrivals and the inherent human dignity of each and every one of them.

The report attempts to set out a process of dealing with unauthorised arrivals in a manner that is open and transparent, not only for the people of Australia but for the detainees as well. I think this report has succeeded, although I am aware that there are those who have already criticised the report for going too far, as well as those who have criticised the report for not going far enough. So it seems that we have probably got the balance just about right.

Before I briefly cover the recommendations, I would like to acknowledge the excellent support the committee has received from the inquiry secretariat headed by Dr Anna Dacre, inquiry secretary Ms Anna Engwerda-Smith, senior research officer Mr Steffan Tissa and office manager Ms Melita Caulfield. I wish to record my appreciation for their professional and enthusiastic support and for their active interest in the subject of this report. Most particularly, I wish to record my respect for the personal commitment and unrelenting focus by each member of the secretariat in their response to the many requests by members of the committee. I believe their conspicuous attention to detail ensured we produced a well-researched and intellectually rigorous report that will be of great interest to many Australian families.

This inquiry was undertaken against the immigration detention policy framework that was set out by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship on 29 July 2008. I would like to cover those particular sets of values—there are seven—because they provide the basis on which we conducted the inquiry. First, mandatory detention is an essential component of strong border control. Second, to support the integrity of Australia’s immigration program three groups will be subject to mandatory detention: (1) all unauthorised arrivals, for the management of health, identity and security risks to the community; (2) unlawful noncitizens who present unacceptable risks to the community; and (3) unlawful noncitizens who have repeatedly refused to comply with their visa conditions. Third, children, including juvenile foreign fishers, and where possible their families, will not be detained in an immigration detention centre. Fourth, detention that is indefinite or otherwise arbitrary is not acceptable and the length and conditions of detention, including the appropriateness of both the accommodation and the services provided, will be subject to regular review. Fifth, detention in immigration detention centres is only to be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time. Sixth, people in detention will be treated fairly and reasonably within the law. Seventh, conditions of detention will ensure the inherent dignity of the human person.

I do believe that to a great extent this report has achieved the objectives that we set out against that particular policy framework, and I note that the conditions, of which there are 18 in the report, are there in the report to be read. I would like to concentrate on recommendation 18 with regard to detention costs. Before that, I would also like to record that while in Sydney the committee had the opportunity of speaking to people released on bridging visas who had previously been for many years in detention centres. It was quite striking to me on a personal basis that these people were damaged by their experience of long-term, indefinite and interminable detention. The evidence that the committee received about the length of detention was highly indicative of the fact that people have to understand how long they are placed in detention for. It was the indefiniteness, the interminable period, the not knowing and the uncertainty that caused great distress and great mental anguish that led to depression and mental illness in the people who were detained. Many had been detained for years not knowing if or when they would be released or what the outcome of the process was.

This was another problem. It seemed almost impossible for detainees to actually find out exactly where their particular application was in the pipeline of procedure and process. This is one of the reasons that we wanted to ensure with the recommendations in this report that the process and the practice was open and transparent and there were appropriate time checks—a review by DIAC itself after three months if anyone still remained in detention; an ombudsman’s review that was going to be tabled in parliament; an advisory review to the minister from the ombudsman in a six-month time frame; and anyone who was maintained in detention would only be there because they were an unacceptable and significant ongoing risk to the Australian community. Those people, if they were still in detention, at the end of a 12-month period would have access to an independent tribunal review and, subsequently, if they were still unsatisfied with the result, they would then be able to proceed to judicial review. I think that really allows people who were held in detention to understand exactly the process that is going to happen to them and it will hopefully alleviate any concerns regarding depression and mental illness.

Of the people we did see on this particular occasion, all of them Asian, the middle-aged women who had been held in detention for many years—who would hardly be any assault on Australian security—were broken women. They particularly found it very hard. One gentleman, a man from Korea, was a highly qualified engineer and it seemed entirely inappropriate that a man such as that with a category of qualifications which this country actually needs right now with our skill shortages should be held in such a position. The government of course must have its mandatory checks and it must make sure of our wider duty of care to the Australian people, but it seems that there is a better way. We do not need to damage people to the extent that I saw these people damaged.

Another aspect of the process that we reported on, and it is recommendation 18, is detention debt and how that impacted on people. We actually recommended that this particular aspect of the detention process be reviewed. I understand that the minister is reviewing this. The recommendation was that it be completely abandoned. The policy for charging a detention debt began in 1992. The current charge for an individual being held in immigration detention is $125.40 a day. Spouses and dependent children are also liable for charges, with the parent or guardian being liable for the cost of a dependent child. In the last four financial years, a total of 17,355 detainees have been invoiced with a detention debt amounting to over $170 million. The committee received evidence that Australia is the only country in the world to charge people for immigration detention. Further, Australia does not charge people for other forms of detention, such as detention in prison or detention under mental health or quarantine acts. The practice of applying detention charges would not appear to provide any substantial revenue or contribute in any way to offsetting the costs of the detention policy. Further, it is likely that the administrative costs outweigh or are approximately equal to the debts recovered. In 2004-05, less than 2.5 per cent of the detention debt invoiced had been recovered. This is because most debts are either left unpaid, waived or written off by the Department of Finance and Deregulation.

The committee received evidence—and this is what was important to us—about the negative impacts of this policy on the mental health, financial security and ability to leave and return to Australia of former detainees. Even where a debt was eventually written off or waived, former detainees still received an invoice for a large amount of money, causing considerable stress and anxiety. Where a debt was written off, detainees were aware that the government could choose to call in that debt at any time, which has detrimental effects to their ability to make financial commitments and to get on with life. The policy may also be functioning as a way of keeping former detainees out of Australia, since having a debt to the Commonwealth makes it difficult to get another visa into Australia. However, if there are people who we genuinely do not want to return to this country, we do not need to rely on debts, as there are other provisions in the Migration Act that would allow DIAC or the minister to achieve this end.

The evidence that the committee received on the detention debt policy was uniformly damning, asking that the policy be abolished. No evidence was received in support of the policy, and the committee was unanimous in its recommendation—at least, no objections at all were voiced in report consideration meetings. No evidence was received to suggest that the policy was a deterrent to people coming to Australia unlawfully. I understand also that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has said that this policy is currently under review and has admitted that he sees little logic in it. I commend recommendation 18 to the minister, as I do all the recommendations of the committee.

I want to again thank my co-members of the committee for their diligence, for their continued interest and for the genuine openness and honesty with which this issue was deliberated on at some length by the committee. I commend the report not only to the minister but also to the people of Australia.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this report as a member of this parliament and a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. This is a report on the inquiry into immigration detention in Australia by the committee. This report is the first of three reports on the inquiry into immigration detention in Australia. This report addresses the criteria that should be applied in determining for how long a person should be held in immigration detention, the criteria that should be applied in determining when a person should be released from immigration detention following health and security checks, and a review mechanism for ongoing detention, removal practices and detention costs. The second and third reports, which are to be tabled in 2009, will address alternatives to detention, financial costs, service provision and the infrastructure required to support the immigration detention framework for the future.

This inquiry was long overdue. The Australian community was tired of the way that unauthorised persons were treated in this country. There is no doubt that Australians expect a government to ensure strong border protections. However, Australians also expect that this will be done in a fair and balanced way and in a way that supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Prime Minister has just spoken on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the chamber. The Prime Minister noted the focus of this Labor government on ensuring that the policies adopted by this government in dealing with unauthorised arrivals are applied in a humane way.

On 29 July 2008, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator the Hon. Chris Evans, announced a series of values that would underpin Australia’s immigration detention policy. Those seven values are as follows. Mandatory detention is an essential component of strong border control. To support the integrity of Australia’s immigration program, three groups will be subject to mandatory detention: all unauthorised arrivals, for management of health, identity and security risks to the community; unlawful noncitizens who present unacceptable risks to the community; and unlawful noncitizens who have repeatedly refused to comply with their visa conditions. Children, including juvenile foreign fishers and, where possible, their families, will not be detained in an immigration detention centre. Detention that is indefinite or otherwise arbitrary is not acceptable, and the length and conditions of detention, including the appropriateness of both the accommodation and the services provided, would be subject to regular review. Detention in immigration detention centres is only to be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time. People in detention will be treated fairly and reasonably within the law. Conditions of detention will ensure the inherent dignity of the human person.

Since this inquiry commenced, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship announced changes to detention that fundamentally reintroduce basic human rights into the way that this country deals with people that are unauthorised arrivals in this country. The premise of the new changes was that unlawful arrivals should be held in detention for the least amount of time possible and only for certain reasons.

There is no doubt that not only were the policies and processes surrounding detention and unauthorised arrivals flawed but they did in fact, in some cases, cause distress to the persons detained. A recurring concern about the current immigration detention system has been the indefinite nature of detention, with little scope for information about the reasons or rationale for detention. This report tackles those uncertainties and sets out clear and definitive guidelines for detaining individuals.

This standing committee heard much evidence from organisations and individuals that clearly identified that serious flaws exist in the current programs and policies in the way detention occurs. Even though there were reports that indicated that the treatment of detainees and the processes have improved in recent times, much more work needs to be done. Within the short time I have to speak on this report, I would like to take this opportunity to provide a brief summary of the recommendations.

Recommendations 1 through to 5 outline the committee’s criteria for release relating to health, identity and security checks. The key element of these recommendations is that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, DIAC, develop and publish criteria for each of the areas considered in relation to release—that is, health, identity and security. Also the criteria should be made explicit and public.

In relation to health, the criteria should draw on the treatment standards and detention provision that otherwise would apply to all visa applicants and to Australian citizens and residents who pose a potential public health risk. It is also recommended that there be a time frame for health checks, such as five days, and that this time frame be established in consultation with relevant stakeholders.

The committee recommends that a risk based approach be applied where a person’s identity is not conclusively established within 90 days. In such circumstances, it is recommended that mechanisms be developed that would allow a person whose identity has not been established to be released and that the release can be subject to conditions. The release should occur unless a demonstrated and specific risk exists or where there is clear evidence of a lack of cooperation or refusal to comply with reasonable requests. The same criteria should apply in relation to the security check after 90 days where there is little indication of a risk to the community, as advised by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, and the person has been cooperative or compliant with reasonable requests.

Importantly, to ensure that people who continue to be detained beyond 90 days as a result of a risk assessment are provided with ongoing review through an open and accountable process, a further assessment will occur after six months. The committee recommends that the Australian government empower the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to review the substance and procedure of the security assessment and the evidence on which it is based. The inspector-general should provide advice to the Commonwealth Ombudsman as to whether there is a legitimate basis for the delays in security assessments.

Recommendations 6 and 7 are that DIAC develop and publish the criteria for assessing whether a person in immigration detention poses an unacceptable risk to the community and that the criteria be applied equally against persons detained following a section 501 visa cancellation. Further in relation to section 501 detainees, DIAC should take into account other assessments and reporting requirements already undertaken in relation to the detainee by other authorities. Recommendation 8 once again outlines the need for open and accountable criteria in determining whether there is a need for detention due to repeated visa noncompliance.

Importantly, recommendation 9 ensures that territories excised from the migration zone are subject to the same risk based approach and values announced on 29 July 2008. Recommendation 10 addresses the call by many inquiry participants for an increased level of formal review. That is why the committee recommended that DIAC develop and publish details of the scope of the three-month detention review and that the review be provided to the person in immigration detention and any other persons they authorise to receive it, such as their legal representative or advocate. It is surprising that in the year 2008 such a recommendation has to be made and that such processes had not been in place previously. This, of course, is a basic right for any individual who has had a decision made against them, to have access to the grounds and reasons for such decision and the mechanism applied in reaching such a conclusion.

That is why recommendation 11 is such a substantial shift in the practices that have come before it but will provide comfort to those who have fought for so long to see a government that is open with and accountable for its detention practices. The recommendation states that the House of Representatives and/or Senate resolve that the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s six-month detention reviews be tabled in parliament and that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship be required to respond within 15 sitting days. The minister’s response should address each of the Ombudsman’s recommendations and provide reasons why that recommendation is accepted, rejected or no longer applicable.

Importantly, the committee recommends at point 12 that the reforms announced by the minister in July be enshrined in legislation and that the Migration Regulations and guidelines are also amended to reflect these reforms. The committee has taken the step of recommending a maximum time frame of 12 months for detention for all persons other than in the circumstances that a person is determined to be a significant and ongoing unacceptable risk to the community. Such release could be subject to conditions. Recommendation 14 states that where a person continues to be detained it is appropriate that rights exist for the person to seek external review, firstly through an independent tribunal and subsequently through a judicial review. Recommendations 15 to 17 outline a process for removal to ensure adequate notice and important considerations are given to health and other issues, before that person is removed from Australia.

Last but not least, recommendation 18 notes that as a priority the Australian government should introduce legislation to repeal the liability of immigration detention costs. The committee further recommends that the Minister for Finance and Deregulation make the determination to waive existing detention debts for all current and former detainees, effective immediately, and that all reasonable efforts be made to advise existing debtors of this decision. The previous speaker, and it was you, Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, noted that there are no other forms of detention around this world that charge a fee, nor are there other forms of detention in our own country that apply a charge in such circumstances. These charges cannot be retained or justified.

As may have been noticed in taking the chamber through these recommendations, there is a common theme. That is that there needs to be a fundamental shift from an internal focus and process with little or no accountability to one that involves open and accountable processes in decisions made by detention facility operators and by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Those criteria should be developed with key stakeholders and they should be published. I appreciate and respect that other members of the committee may have differing views on the method of ensuring procedural fairness and accountability. These recommendations, however, in my view are a step in the right direction and are a positive step forward for Australia and its reputation internationally in ensuring that universal human rights are applied to all persons in the context of our national security obligations.

To finish up, I would like to record my thanks for and acknowledgement of the extensive and thorough work done by the chair, Michael Danby, and I would like to make special mention of the secretariat for all their work. I would also like to mention the wonderful work of the deputy chair, Danna Vale—who is now in the chair in this chamber—and I also wish to acknowledge the willingness of all of the committee members to contribute to the discussions in the development of this report. I look forward to speaking in much more detail, upon the tabling of the remaining two reports, on the evidence heard and read in relation to this inquiry.

Petro Georgiou (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak about the first report of the inquiry into immigration detention by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. The Australian immigration detention regime has been the subject of considerable contention, both domestically and internationally, since the introduction of mandatory detention by the Keating government in 1992 and, with that introduction, the introduction of charges for being detained. It was more than a decade before a combination of external and internal factors saw a significant amelioration of some of the harshest elements of the policy. Externally, the key factor was a major decrease in the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat without visas. Domestically, public attitudes shifted both because there was decreased anxiety about the flow of unauthorised arrivals and because there was growing dismay about the consequences of mandatory detention: the considerable length of time people were deprived of their liberty; the mental and physical harm suffered by vulnerable men, women and children; and the unlawful detention of Australian residents and, indeed, Australian citizens. Significant changes in law and policy were adopted in 2005, and, in July, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship announced further welcome changes to the immigration detention regime. This inquiry by the joint standing committee provides an opportunity to maintain the momentum of reform. I believe that in this first report we have partially made good use of this opportunity.

The report makes a number of very important recommendations to improve the fairness and transparency of Australia’s detention regime policy. One particularly worthy of mention—and it has been mentioned by others—is the recommendation to stop charging former detainees the cost of their detention. I rarely use the word ‘outrageous’ because it is much overused by politicians, but this was outrageous. Detention debts can be huge and well beyond the means of people to repay them, and the Commonwealth Ombudsman and others told the committee of the great stress and financial hardship that debts can cause. I do hope the government will move rapidly to implement this, and other recommendations, as soon as possible.

There is one critical subject upon which members of the committee do differ, and differ strongly. This is the length of time a person is detained before the merits of the decision to detain them are subject to scrutiny by a tribunal or a court. As the law stands, the executive, immigration department officials and their minister have the unfettered power to indefinitely detain certain people, even if they pose absolutely no risk to the community. This was held to be so in the Federal Court in 2003, in the Al-Kateb case. The Federal Court judge in that case was John von Doussa, who was until recently President of the Australian Human Rights Commission. He has recently said this about the case:

As a judge, I was not asked to understand the emotional trauma of the detainees that appeared before the court. I did not know the conditions in which asylum seekers were detained—nor did I ask. Although international law prohibits inhumane and arbitrary detention, Australian law does not.

The results are troubling. As a judge, I felt the decision at which I arrived was both legally correct and morally reprehensible.

The new arrangements introduced by the minister in July do not, unfortunately, change the framework of this regime, and I think that, to speak frankly, it is fatuous to talk about paradigm changes while we detain people for up to a year without any external review. The changes have improved the processes of departmental review and of review by the Ombudsman, but they impose no new constraints on the executive’s power to detain. The committee’s recommendations relating to reviews by the immigration department and the Ombudsman will improve the framework. However, the committee in its majority report does recognise that these changes are, in themselves, not enough to create a viable system of review and accountability. The report states:

The Committee noted the strong evidence received that the lack of merits and judicial review for the decision to detain has in the past meant that people have been held wrongfully, unlawfully and for a period of years on the basis of a contested departmental decision.

The evidence pointed compellingly to the critical need for the Migration Act to be amended so that a tribunal or court could examine whether decisions to detain were reasonable and necessary in accordance with the new policy. The majority believed that there was no need for such independent oversight until a person had been detained for 12 months. Senator Eggleston, Senator Hanson-Young and I differed very strongly. Twelve months is a grossly excessive period for public servants to be able to make unfettered decisions involving the deprivation of liberty, given the potential harm such decisions may cause. The changes introduced by the minister and the changes recommended by the committee will not ensure rigorous and timely assessment of whether immigration detention is necessary and reasonable. Neither the principles of justice nor concern for the welfare of detainees suggests that 12 months is an acceptable period. It is certainly far in excess of the powers that public servants have with respect to the detention of people arrested for alleged criminal misconduct or detained because their mental illness endangers them or others.

When the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship announced a new immigration detention policy on 29 July, he pointedly mentioned that the United Nations Human Rights Committee had on a number of occasions found that our immigration detention system violated the prohibition on arbitrary detention under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The new policy, he said, honoured our international human rights obligation. This message is one that we have heard from other members of the Rudd government, not least from the Prime Minister today and, a couple of weeks ago, from the Attorney-General, when he told a conference that the government is ‘committed to introducing into Australian law the rights that are recognised and protected in the international instruments to which Australia is a party’. I hope this is a serious commitment, because, if it is, the government will have to move quickly to amend the Migration Act to comply with the prohibition on arbitrary detention.

One change that has to be made to the law is that a person cannot be placed into immigration detention unless it is necessary and reasonable on specified grounds. The second essential change is stated in straightforward terms in article 9(4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his detention and order his release if the detention is not lawful.

I emphasise that the article states that the court must be able to decide without delay whether the detention is lawful. This surely cannot mean that a detained person would be denied the right to take legal proceedings for 12 months, which is what the committee recommends. I hope that, the next time the Attorney-General makes a speech on the Australian government’s plans to bring Australian law into conformity, he gives prominence to the reform of the immigration detention regime.

To achieve such reform, the dissenting report proposes that a person who is detained should be entitled to appeal immediately to a court for an order that he or she be released because there are no reasonable grounds to consider that their detention is justified under the criteria specified for detention. If honourable members think that this is too quick or that it is not necessary, let me just quote a couple of cases from a report of the Ombudsman—and there are dozens of them. I have chosen a couple that are simple and not too long. The report says:

Mr M had been in Australia lawfully for three years. He had lodged a request for the Minister to intervene in his case and grant him a visa. While the Minister was considering this request, Mr M was granted a second bridging visa but this was not recorded on ICSE (The department database). On December 24 2003—

the Christmas season—

while waiting at Melbourne Airport for a friend, Mr M was detained and transferred to a detention facility. Even though a review of Mr M’s records could have readily clarified his status, he remained in detention for seven calendar days until DIAC officers returned from their Christmas/New Year break and reviewed his case.

Take another case:

Ms K had given an oral account of her lawful immigration status to DIAC officers both before the decision to detain and on the following day when she was interviewed. This information was consistent with that held on DIAC’s system, yet no checks were conducted to verify the information that Ms K had provided. Ms K’s solicitor contacted DIAC on the second day of her detention and advised that he could provide DIAC with a certified copy of Ms K’s passport, which he did. DIAC advised the solicitor that a certified copy was insufficient and that DIAC would need to sight the original. The solicitor, based in a separate city to where Ms K was being detained, was also told by DIAC that it would not be acceptable for him to take the passport to the office in his city as that office would not know the case and could not make an identity assessment. Ms K’s passport was subsequently viewed by DIAC after she had been detained for eight calendar days.

These are not people who have no right to be in Australia, which is where the argument is sometimes misunderstood; these are people with a legitimate right who we are locking up with no right to appeal to a court. I do not regard that as acceptable and I do not think any of us should. Paradigm shifts are difficult to achieve but you have to keep on pushing.

The dissenting report also proposes:

A person may not be detained for a period exceeding 30 days unless on an application by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship a court makes an order that it is necessary to detain the person on a specified ground and there are no effective alternatives to detention. This is consistent with the Minister’s commitment that under the new system ‘the department will have to justify a decision to detain—not presume detention’.

I commend the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship for requesting this review; I commend the many people who have given us an unparalleled amount of information, evidence and experience; and I commend the secretariat and my colleagues for their capacity to work together under sometimes difficult circumstances. I look forward to working with my committee colleagues to prepare the next two reports in this inquiry.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the first report of the inquiry into immigration detention in Australia by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. First, I would like to commend this report and the committee’s chair, the member for Melbourne Ports. It is a thorough, well-researched report that attracted support from both sides of politics and whose recommendations set the tone for a strong but fair approach to dealing with border protection and those who seek to come to Australia. The report draws attention to the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s investigations into the problems of past detention policies and makes a series of suggestions as to appropriate future policy.

It is interesting to see that the joint standing committee, which includes the opposition spokesperson for immigration and citizenship, the member for Murray, supported in this report the government announcement in July which outlined seven values that would form the new immigration policy. That included the determination that three groups will be held in mandatory detention: unauthorised arrivals to be checked for identity and health, those who pose an unacceptable risk to the community and those who have repeatedly broken visa or immigration conditions. Those outside these three groups will reside in the community until their case is resolved.

We heard the member for Murray just this morning on Sky News warmly endorsing the joint standing committee’s report. In light of the support that has been expressed by the member for Murray as the opposition spokesperson, it is interesting to see the coalition’s rhetoric on this important issue return to that of the Howard years—the time of ‘mean and tricky’. Yesterday in question time, the member for Murray accused the Rudd government of ‘giving the green light to people smugglers’. It has to be said that the member for Murray and her sidekick, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, simply cannot get their story straight—whether it is about detention centres, budgets, boat people or the intervention by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in individual cases.

The member for Murray has no credibility when it comes to her own policy let alone the government’s. In September, she said:

I am pleased to see the new Labor government choosing to continue the Howard policies …

Then in November the member for Murray said that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship had to:

… loudly and clearly articulate what Labor’s border security policy is.

Then yesterday the member for Murray said that Australia is ‘still very strict and strong’ in regards to border protection.

As if that level of inconsistency from the opposition was not enough, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, who acts as the coalition’s shadow parliamentary secretary for immigration and citizenship, is saying something different again. When talking in the Senate about Labor’s immigration policy yesterday she said, ‘There’s been a decisive shift in the way you guys are doing business.’ So which is it?

The same question could and really should be asked in regards to the member for Murray’s thoughts on detention and processing centres. After the Rudd government closed down the Nauru and Manus Island detention centres, the member for Murray criticised us in October for having only one facility at Christmas Island. Yet yesterday—which was a very busy day of totally flipping on anything she had previously said about the Rudd government’s immigration and detention policy—the member for Murray said, ‘I don’t think we need to again have Nauru or Manus Island operating, because, of course, we’ve got Christmas Island.’

The member for Murray is not just lacking credibility when it comes to policy; she also seems to lack the ability to count. How many boats have illegally arrived in Australia this year? Good question. The member for Murray claimed at a doorstop interview yesterday that it was seven. Then in question time she claimed it was eight. In fact, the number is four boats, carrying 48 passengers. For the record, five boats arrived last year and six in 2006.

While the success of the government’s border security policy cannot be judged purely on the number of boats that arrive on our shores, the least the member for Murray could do is get her facts right and not—as she did in question time yesterday—incorrectly claim there has been a ‘surge’ in attempted boat arrivals. We have seen this tendency towards inconsistency and being misleading in this policy area from the Liberal Party before not just on how many boats have arrived on our shores but also earlier this year. The member for Murray has also claimed that there has been $67.4 million cut—

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is this all relevant to your report?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Border security is very relevant to the report because the issue raised in this report is directly concerned with border security issues. As I said, the claim made by the member for Murray and the shadow parliamentary secretary, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, was a false claim that $67.4 million had been:

… stripped out of the critical area of border security and immigration processing.

The facts are that the budget papers clearly show that the closure of the offshore processing centres in Nauru and Manus Island results in a $68.7 million saving over five years. The budget papers also show that the $68.7 million saving is offset by a $1.3 million cost for the abolition of temporary protection visas granted to refugees by the previous government. What we have had from the member for Murray and Senator Fierravanti-Wells is a false claim designed to mislead the public that $67.4 million has been cut from border security measures. The budget papers reveal directly that there has been a $116 million increase in total net resourcing for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for 2008-09.

It should be made clear: the Rudd Government’s track record refutes the opposition’s claims that we are somehow weak on border security. We have maintained the excision around some of Australia’s territories, and we have maintained the Christmas Island detention and processing centre. Our immigration policy is tough, but also fair and humane. It gives me tremendous pleasure to say of the Rudd government that it has been able to put an end to what is fairly described as the ‘barbarity’ of the previous government’s immigration policies.

It is worth mentioning also that the member for Murray misled the public just a few weeks back in relation to another immigration matter on the issue of a Western Australian midwife whose daughter suffers from Down syndrome, who was seeking to stay in Australia. On 10 November this year, the member for Murray called for the exercise of ministerial discretion in this case and she called for it again in a media release on 26 November which has mysteriously fallen off her website. The former call led on 13 November in Senate question time to Senator Boyce asking the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship whether he would exercise his ministerial discretion in this case. Then the member for Murray on 19 November in a speech said:

Their case has been waiting for ministerial discretion, having reached the end of the whole business of ministerial tribunal reviews for a very long time now.

Then in the media release of 26 November, the one that has now gone missing, the member for Murray said:

… Minister Evans steadfastly refused to use his special powers, leaving the almost identical case of the Robinson family in Perth languishing. After nearly seven months sitting on Minister Evans desk, and with only weeks left on their visa, the Robinson family and their Down syndrome son David were finally granted a permanent visa after public outrage and embarrassing questions asked of the Minister in Parliament.

The facts of this matter are that the minister made the initial decision to approve the family’s visas in August and, subject to normal security and health checks and following completion of those checks, the files were returned to the minister for the second round approval in November and approved on 12 November 2008.

You might note that the family’s ministerial requests had been knocked back twice under the former government—so much for the level of consistency or any accuracy at all in the way in which the member for Murray has been dealing with these immigration issues. The protestations about this case by the coalition, indeed the recent statements by the member for Murray generally on border security, are alarming. However, I return to this report. Regardless of the member for Murray’s indecision and inability to understand basic statistics, it was good to see her endorse the Joint Standing Committee on Migration’s report. Therefore she is making a warm endorsement of the Rudd government’s immigration policy. I am pleased to see that the member for Murray agrees with me that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has done a fine job in keeping our borders secure, and in massively improving our treatment of refugees in his first year in office. I commend the report to the House.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration I take this opportunity to speak on the presentation of this report on immigration detention centres in Australia. It is appropriately titled Immigration detention in Australia: a new beginning, because I see both the work of the committee and the policy announced earlier this year by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, as a new beginning in policy with respect to detention centres in Australia and as a new beginning for those people who come to this country and are for one reason or another detained in those centres.

At the outset I thank the secretariat, who assisted the committee with the work that was carried out for the last 12 months. I was elected in 2007 and this is the first report that I have been associated with, albeit that I do sit on two other standing committees of parliament. I commend all of the members of the secretariat. I thank Dr Anna Dacre, Ms Anna Engwerda-Smith, Mr Steffan Tissa and Ms Melita Caulfield for the assistance they gave to the committee. I have worked with public servants over the years on many occasions and I have to say the work of all these people was absolutely professional in arranging the visits, researching information, organising public hearings and managing the workload, which they did above and beyond what I would have generally called the call of duty. Their absolute professionalism in everything they did is commendable. I believe that the final report is in no small part a measure of their contribution to the whole process.

I also take the opportunity to thank the chair of the committee, Mr Michael Danby, the member for Melbourne Ports, and you, Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, for your tolerance, your compromise, your experience and your wisdom as senior members of the committee. I valued very much the fact that along the way you were able to manage the process. And it was not an easy process; it was very difficult because of the types of issues we had to deal with, the places we visited, the people we were talking to and the processes that we needed to go through. As I say, the experience and wisdom of both the chair and the deputy chair of the committee were gratefully received by me and I am sure by other members of the committee.

The committee visited detention centres in Sydney, Darwin, Christmas Island, Melbourne and Perth. There was one visit I was not able to attend. We also received 139 different submissions. We held public hearings, which were attended by many people, including some of those people who had made public submissions but also, and very importantly, former detainees of the detention centres that we had visited. I put those detainees broadly into four different categories. There are people who have arrived on our shores as what we generally refer to as illegal boat arrivals, although I question the term ‘illegal’. Others would say there is no such thing. There are illegal fishers, people who had breached section 501 visas and people who had for other reasons breached different visa categories and ultimately ended up in detention centres. In the course of our inquiry we also spoke to many of the people who worked with and visited these people and assisted them while they were in detention centres right around the country. I stress that it was right around the country because I found from my experience that at each detention centre we went to it was a different experience, and therefore it was important to hear from those people individually.

You made the point in your own comments on this report, Madam Deputy Speaker, that as at 7 November there were some 279 people held in detention. The breakdown of those was 189 in immigration detention centres, 44 in community detention, 25 in alternative temporary detention in the community, 16 in immigration residential housing, three in immigration transit accommodation and two restricted on board vessels in port. I cite those statistics simply to highlight the different forms under which people may be held in detention. It is not simply one particular type of place. So, when people try to envisage how people might be held, they can see there is a range of options available to governments and they have been used by governments over the years.

In quoting the recommendations from the report I note that there were some 18 recommendations that the committee ultimately adopted. I know that, in respect of some those recommendations, some members of the committee prepared a dissenting report, but I should note that there were certainly consistency and agreement on the majority of the others. So it was clearly a case of one aspect, which I will come back to, where we might have had some disagreement but, overwhelmingly, the recommendations were agreed to unanimously by all members.

On page 9 of the introduction of the report the recommendations are summarised, and I will quickly go through them:

• 5 day time frames for health checks
• up to 90 days for the completion of security and identity checks, after which consideration must be given to release onto a bridging visa,
• a maximum time limit of 12 months’ detention for all except those who are demonstrated to be a significant and ongoing risk to the community, and
• the publication of clear guidelines regarding how the criteria of unacceptable risk and visa non-compliance are to be applied.

The report goes on to recommend:

• greater detail and scope of the three month review conducted by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship
• ensuring detainees and their legal representatives receive a copy of the review
• ensuring the six month Ombudsman’s review is tabled in parliament and that the ministerial response to recommendations is comprehensive
• providing increased oversight of national security assessments that may affect individuals
• enshrining the new values in legislation—

that refers to the new values of the minister’s policy, announced on 29 July—

• establishing a maximum of 12 months in detention unless a person is determined to be a significant and ongoing risk to the Australian community, and
• opening the door to merits and judicial review of the grounds for detention after that person has been detained for more than 12 months.

I believe that those recommendations essentially summarise the general direction that the committee would like the government to go in when it comes to policy on detention centres.

Those members of the committee who dissented did so on the question of judicial review, and I simply want to make this point: it is my clear impression that their judgements were based on events, practices and processes which took place in the period prior to the Rudd government coming into office. Therefore, they made judgements about what should be done based on the experiences that were brought to them from the submissions made about how people were treated prior to the Rudd government coming to office and certainly prior to Minister Chris Evans’s announcement of the new policy.

Whilst I can understand the dissenting report, at this point in time it is not one that I would support. Nor do I believe it should be supported by the government. We have a new policy in place and it is only once that policy has been applied that we can make judgements about whether we ought to make further recommendations to the minister. I believe that the member for Kooyong said that there was no process after the Ombudsman’s report at the six-month period for any further action to take place. My recollection of the recommendations is that in addition to the six-month report by the Ombudsman we are requesting the minister to respond within 15 days to the Ombudsman’s report. So there is an opportunity for matters to be taken up by the minister.

I will just make some personal observations about the work that the committee did. Firstly, setting aside the submissions from the government departments that we received, which one would expect to be impartial and non-political, my recollection of all representations that were made to the committee were either critical or highly critical of the past policies in respect of detention centres. Secondly, all of the representations that I can recall that made comment about the new Rudd government policy commended that policy. That policy was well received by all of the people who made submissions to the committee, albeit that some might have wanted the government to have gone further.

Thirdly, in all the evidence that I can recall being put to the committee, there was none which supported any suggestion that terrorists were entering Australia as refugees or boat people. I saw no evidence at all to support that notion. Fourthly, there was substantial evidence that people held in detention centres for any period of time, and certainly those held in detention centres for lengthy periods of time, ended up with mental health issues. And, fifthly, the majority of the people who were held in detention centres were ultimately released into the community.

It seems to me, given those observations, that what we need is a change in policy—and we have seen that in the welcome policy response by the Rudd government. We need a fundamental change in mindset, and I have to say that the introductory comments in the report talk about the need for a paradigm shift in the way we address the issue of people being held in detention centres in future. Again, I welcome that. I believe that we need to adopt what I would refer to as principles of natural justice when we deal with people who come into this country for whatever purpose. Those principles of natural justice would rely on us giving them the same provisions in law that we apply to anyone who, for one reason or another, comes before the law in this country, and that is that they are presumed to be innocent until they are found to be guilty. I am pleased to say the Rudd Labor government is going in that general direction with its policy.

That policy announced on 29 July by Minister Chris Evans has seven key values. The first is that mandatory detention is an essential component of strong border control. None of us dispute that. Second, to support the integrity of Australia’s immigration program three groups will be subject to mandatory detention: (a) all unauthorised arrivals, for management of health, identity and security risk to the community, (b) unlawful noncitizens who present unacceptable risks to the community and (c) unlawful noncitizens who have repeatedly refused to comply with their visa conditions. Third, children, including juvenile foreign fishers and, where possible, their families, will not be detained in an immigration detention centre. Fourth, detention that is indefinite or otherwise arbitrary is not acceptable and the length and conditions of detention, including the appropriateness of both the accommodation and the services provided, would be subject to regular review. Fifth, detention in immigration detention centres is only to be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time. Sixth, people in detention will be treated fairly and reasonably within the law. Seventh, conditions of detention will ensure the inherent dignity of the human person.

I finish with this comment. I share the comments made by the member for Isaacs and I too was concerned by the question raised by the member for Murray in the House yesterday. I say this to the member for Murray: whilst there was a dissenting report in respect of this matter, those of us who had the firsthand experience of visiting detention centres, speaking to people within them and speaking to people who assisted them all came away with a very strong view that our policy ought to be more humane—and even the dissenting report goes further than our committee did in terms of wanting to make it more humane. I therefore find it objectionable that that question was raised in the House. I say to anyone: before you make a judgement about detention centres and the people who come here, take the time to visit those detention centres, as the committee did.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, as I opened this debate, I seek leave to speak again without closing the debate.

Leave granted.

Yesterday I presented to the House the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration on its inquiry into immigration detention in Australia entitled Immigration detention in Australia: a new beginning. This is a report of which the members for Hughes, Makin, Isaacs and Petrie are all very proud. Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, I apologise for missing your contribution to this debate as the member for Hughes. I value your views and I have got to know them as our committee has gone through this inquiry. Your contribution, as the member for Makin said, has been extremely wise and very helpful in the deliberations of the committee. We have had a very hardworking core group of people on this committee, including a couple of senators—Senators McEwen and Bilyk. Certainly the members for Hughes, Makin and Petrie have helped form the core of this committee and, together with the member for Kooyong and I, have been at most of its hearings.

Tonight I want to briefly consider recent comments made by opposition members on the matters discussed in this report. I will begin my conclusion by referring to the matters the member for Makin and the member for Isaacs discussed, and that is the comments made by the member for Murray. The member for Murray alleged that changes made by the current government to the detention policy are encouraging people smugglers. She implied in her question in the House yesterday that there has been a so-called surge in unauthorised boat arrivals in Australian waters. Regrettably, there was a story on the front page of the Australian yesterday that reported this as a fact rather than a mere allegation. I rang Mr Steve Cook from the International Organisation for Migration in Jakarta yesterday and he told me that the claim that there was a surge in illegal boats coming to Australia was not made by him. If you are going to make such grave allegations, given the history of this debate in Australia, you ought to check with an important international public servant working for an important, fair minded organisation such as the International Organisation for Migration before you make such an allegations.

As the member for Isaacs pointed out, there is no such surge. There have been four unauthorised arrivals with 48 passengers so far this year. Since it is now December, that is probably the total for the year. Last year, which was the last year of the Howard government, there were five boats with 148 passengers and the year before, 2006, six boats with 60 passengers. In other words, the total of unauthorised boat arrivals in the first year of the Rudd government has been lower, not higher, than it was in either of the last two years of the Howard government. The trend in unauthorised boat arrivals has been downwards, not upwards.

The member for Isaacs exposed the allegations that the Rudd government has somehow weakened our surveillance of Australian waters and allowed this mythical surge of unauthorised arrivals to take place. In fact, no boat containing unauthorised persons has reached the Australian mainland since the Rudd government was elected. The last time a boat reached the Australian mainland was in November 2006, when a boatload of 83 Indonesians arrived at Cape York. That was when the Howard government was in office. It is of course true that people smugglers are active in our region. It is also true that, before the election of this government, Australia continued to work with its South-East Asian partners to deter people smugglers. A number of groups have been intercepted in the region recently.

As we all now know, rather than locking up thousands of people in remote parts of Australia in detention centres like Baxter and Woomera as some kind of deterrence, the effective way of managing Australia’s sovereignty and borders is to have good relations with our neighbours, particularly with neighbours like Indonesia. One thing that we learnt during this report was that the activities of the Navy, of Customs and of Immigration, integrated with the same organs of the Indonesian state, are the really effective way of making sure that people do not endanger their lives by putting to sea in the types of boats that previously came to Australia. Moreover, seen from the perspective and context of Europe, the arrival of 4,000 people in these boats in the beginning of 2000 was not something to be hysterical about anyhow. I recently met with the deputy chair of the German Bundestag in parliament house, and he asked me to describe the nature of the problem. After hearing of those small numbers of arrivals in 2000, the deputy chair responded in a very surprised tone, saying, ‘Mr Danby, we received 350,000 from Yugoslavia in that one year.’ So you have to see this in context.

Australian law enforcement and immigration agencies continue to work with our counterparts in South-East Asia to respond to people smuggling. There has been no diminution of Australia’s efforts in this respect under this government. The government has maintained patrols of our borders by the border protection command and has maintained a system of mandatory detention and excisions. The fact that we have shut down the Howard government’s Pacific solution does not mean that we have abolished mandatory detention for unauthorised arrivals, as the member for Kooyong has vociferously pointed out.

It is deplorable that the opposition has again sought to drag the Royal Australian Navy into a political debate. They claimed falsely that the Royal Australian Navy supported their version of events during the ‘children overboard’ affair. We know now from the documentary that has recently been on television that the Navy did not. Now they are trying to do it again. The Chief of Navy has repeatedly assured the public that extending the traditional six-week leave period by a further two weeks will not have any impact on operations. The opposition has virtually accused the Chief of Navy of lying and dereliction of duty. The opposition should stop these insinuations and show some regard for our hardworking Navy.

I mentioned the assertion of Mr Stephen Cook of the International Organisation for Migration that there was no surge. I do think all this is really regrettable. You have to be very serious if you are going to make the kinds of allegations in parliament like those that led to such political trauma in Australia during the Hanson period. You ought to try and establish that these facts are true yourself, as I did with a simple phone call. That is what you have parliamentary staff and researchers for. This allegation was not fact; there is no surge, according to Mr Stephen Cook of the International Organisation for Migration.

The member for Makin made a very good point. All the committee members agreed with the majority of the recommendations. However, despite my best efforts and those of the deputy chair, there were a number of issues on which consensus could not be reached—particularly on the issue of judicial review. Regrettably, some of the media has focused almost exclusively on that minor issue to the exclusion of the benchmarks and guidelines set out by the committee. The committee majority believes that extensive reforms to existing immigration detention procedures and cultural change in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship will bring the best outcomes in terms of national security as well as just and humane treatment of immigration detainees.

The committee’s recommendations make a paradigm shift. We have done exactly what we said in the foreword. The paradigm shift, I am sorry to say to the member for Kooyong, happened in November 2007 at the election. A new government was elected with a completely different Weltanschauung, as the Germans say, or world view of these matters. In June, Senator Chris Evans outlined his criteria for immigration detention and spoke on behalf of the government’s different world view. That is the cultural change that led to the setting out of the benchmarks which implement the more humane Evans criteria, which still address the issues of security for the wider Australian community.

The committee’s recommendations place the onus on releasing people from detention. The onus is on releasing people, not keeping them in. The committee sees the best way of doing this is to give clear deadlines by which further detention must be justified. Specific dates include after 90 days, when, if the identity of detainee is unable to be established, and in the absence of a demonstrated and specific risk to the community, the committee recommends a conditional release from detention. The committee has recognised that it is important to establish the identity of people coming to our country. However, the committee was concerned that, if people had to wait for the conclusion of the identification process before they could be eligible for release, these criteria could potentially discriminate against asylum seekers who may have come from countries without secure identity systems or who may have left their country without documents for reasons of persecution or whatever.

The committee also considers that this 90-day time frame should be reviewed after a period of time with a view to further reducing it if it is possible and practical to do so. Let us be clear about this: 87 per cent of people who come to Australia unauthorised are released within 30 days. We are talking about 13 per cent of those who are here illegally after that. After 90 days, if a security assessment of detainees is ongoing and it is identified that there is little risk to the community, as advised by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation—who made a very professional presentation, as you would expect, to the committee—the committee recommends conditional release from detention.

The security and identity criteria are linked as it is difficult to know whether someone is a security risk when we do not know their identity. But the available evidence suggests that on balance of probability the security risk posed by unauthorised arrivals is very low. As we have repeatedly been told before in this committee, against the mythology of ‘those dreadful Afghan Hazaras on that boat’, of the tens of thousands of unauthorised arrivals in the last decade only two adverse security assessments have come to public attention—against Iraqi nationals on Nauru, and one of those had the adverse assessment later dropped. If al-Qaeda is coming to Australia they are going to do it in the same way that they did in September 11—in first class, in the front seats of a plane where you will not be able to recognise them. Persecuting poor Afghan Hazaras on boats for political purposes is not going to keep terrorists out of Australia.

I must say I was very impressed by the Director-General of ASIO’s explanation to the committee about the comprehensive way that they assess the small number of people that are kept in detention after 90 days. The committee further recommended that after six months, if a security assessment is ongoing, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security provide advice to the Commonwealth Ombudsman as to whether there is a legitimate basis for delays in security assessment. The committee also recommends that the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s six-monthly detention reviews be tabled in parliament and that the Minister the Immigration and Citizenship be required to respond within 15 sitting days. So, quite against what the member for Kooyong said, there is a whole series of new benchmarks and guidelines that would have to be accepted. The onus again is on releasing people, not keeping them in. The minister would have to respond to the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s report after six months and give an explanation to parliament as to why people were being kept in. It is not simply a matter, as in the old days of the Howard government, of keeping them in forever.

Then again, as a further failsafe, the committee recommends that after 12 months, provided a person is not determined to be a significant and ongoing and unacceptable risk to the community, the person should be released from detention onto a bridging visa. The committee noted that length of time spent in detention centres continues to be a concern for many detainees, oversight bodies and advocacy groups. In recent years, and especially since the new government came to office, the number of people in detention for such a long periods has been greatly reduced. The committee hopes that its recommendations are followed and that this number will be reduced further.

With these deadlines in place, the onus will shift from detaining people to releasing people from detention and will mean that the processing of the detainees will be greatly expedited. What some people, I think, cannot accept—and I listened to the member for Kooyong—is that the change in government, the crucial cultural change that happened, has brought about a change in this detention policy. It is all very well, as the member for Makin said, to look backwards to the past and to all of the injustices that happened then. You could have crossed the floor; you could have done a whole lot of things. What we did was elect a different government with a different world view. That is what has changed. There is an essential humanity and rationality in the way in which we have approached immigration detention in Australia—as we said, a new beginning.

The dissenters argue that judicial involvement in the detention process is the best way to expedite the processing of detainees. From the information that we were provided, the committee feels, as has been previously mentioned, that benchmarks, as well as other related recommendations, are the best way to move forward at this stage. Judicial involvement creates its own problems such as greater potential expense, the possibility of clogging up courts and the fact that court procedures take time to occur. (Time expired)

Debate (on motion by Mr Hawke) adjourned.