Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present additional information received by the Select Committee on the Recent Allegations relating to Conditions and Circumstances at the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru and move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I want to take a few moments to address the additional information. It basically relates to an answer to a written question on notice. The Commission of Audit report 2014 outlined the illegal maritime arrival costs, comparing the cost of onshore, offshore, community detention and bridging visas. The source given is the Department of Finance, although the data does not appear to have been made publicly available.

My question on notice to the department was to provide an update of the various costs that had been modelled by the Commission of Audit, and the source is the immigration detention network model population forecast and modelling assumption as at January 2014. From this answer, senators who read this information will see that onshore detention was $238,690, offshore detention was $433,956, community detention was $89,040 and a bridging visa was $30,907. That is in the answer in 1(a), and 1(b) is the updated graph for 2014. We see that for 12 months onshore detention is $311,027 per illegal maritime arrival; offshore detention is $402,923 per illegal maritime arrival; community detention is $91,443; and a bridging visa is $32,017.

So work has been done through the Commission of Audit, through the department, to model these figures. But I suppose more germane to the inquiry into Nauru is that the figures that we got from the department for a period of 10 months per asylum seeker was $613,000 plus—a vast difference to what has been modelled. In all respects, the unrestrained, unscrutinised expenditure on Nauru is, in my view, a very, very significant misuse of public money. When you have modelling done by the Commission of Audit, which this government places great store in, and further modelling on those figures sourced after a question on notice, and that modelling and the actual cost given in evidence by the department is $200,000 out then I think a fair bit more scrutiny needs to be given to this area.

Question agreed to.