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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4338 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

Turning to paragraph 1 (c) of Ms Tucker's motion, regarding the treatment of asylum seekers, the level of amenity and the range of services and facilities provided in our detention centres are comparable to those available to the wider Australian community and exceed those in some regional areas.

Ms Tucker: Oh!

MR PRATT: Yes, they do, Ms Tucker. Look at the facts, not the emotion generated.

Ms Tucker: You've been there, have you?

MR PRATT: Do not focus on the barbed wire. Take a look at the infrastructure. People in detention centres are provided with safe and secure accommodation and a wide range of services, including health services, nutritionally and culturally appropriate meals, religious services, educational opportunities and recreational pursuits. That is what is provided to them and it cannot be refuted. The management and operation of detention centres is the subject of continuing scrutiny by HREOC, the Ombudsman, the Immigration Detention Advisory Group and the Australian parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Migration.

Let me address paragraph 1 (d) of Ms Tucker's motion. Primary processing of any asylum claims of persons in detention occurs relatively quickly in the main. Approximately 80 per cent of asylum seekers receive a primary decision within 18 weeks. The average time it takes the Refugee Review Tribunal to finalise a case is 66 days. Some applicants with strong claims and identity documents are released in less than a month. The reason people are in detention for any length of time is that they choose to appeal and further appeal negative decisions within our legal system and the processing of those appeals is politically impeded.

Australia's system of detention is not an international embarrassment; far from it. It is evident that a number of other countries are now moving towards more extensive detention arrangements similar to those Australia has in place to deal with unauthorised arrivals. For example, Britain, Canada, Sweden and the United States have all recently introduced or expanded detention programs for unlawful arrivals. The 2002 United States budget, for example, provided $89 million to support an additional 1,607 average daily detention bed spaces for a total level of more than 21,000 bed spaces.

Australia is not alone in its concern that many people misuse refugee processes either to gain access to a desirable destination country where they can just disappear or to try to choose a preferred migration outcome using refugee claims. Australia is not on its own in dealing with those issues. Almost all other countries use some form of detention of unauthorised arrivals to minimise the potential for people to abscond into the community. As a sovereign state, we have the right to put in place those systems. We have an obligation to our community to ensure that those systems are in place. We are not simply just addressing how well and humanely we treat the people who arrive illegally, and we do that. This country and its agencies bend over backwards to do the best that they can. We also have an obligation to meet the needs of the Australian community.

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