Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the question. It gives me the opportunity to yet again confirm this, not so much for senators because I hope by now they are across this issue; but it is clear to me that some of the media are not across it. Last year when we discovered the case of Cornelia Rau, who was not unlawfully detained but clearly quite improperly kept in the Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre for far longer than any of the instructions allow, the appropriate thing to do was not to just try and tough it out or believe that she would necessarily be the only one but to go back and look at all the people who had the computer coding ‘released, later found lawful’. That of course could include people who were properly detained, were later given a visa and were therefore released. Nonetheless, I decided it was appropriate to send all the cases off. I am quite sure that members opposite would not accept a minister or the department making the decisions themselves with respect to these cases—and I think if we were in the opposite position we too would not accept it. So I sent them all off. The department has obviously kept at arm’s length other than when requested by the Ombudsman to provide information in relation to all of these. I am committed to a proper and independent assessment of them.

In an interview with the Age yesterday I was asked the question: was I aware of any others that might fit the equivalent of Cornelia Rau? I said, ‘Yes, I am. There is one case that I think is a very tragic one.’ I obviously do not have the details of that case with me at this point—