Govt report recommends 12-month immigration detention limit
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Under review...The report recommends that a person detained should no longer be charged for their detention. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)
No-one in immigration detention should be held for longer than 12 months unless they pose a significant risk to the community, a parliamentary committee has recommended.
The limit on detention is one of 18 recommendations made to the Federal Government by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration today in its report, Immigration Detention in Australia: A New Beginning.
In July, Immigration Minister Chris Evans announced once an asylum seeker had been ruled out as a health or security risk to the community they could be released.
Mr Evans said only those who were deemed to be a risk to the community and those who broke rules of their visa conditions would be detained and that the Immigration Department would have to show why a person should be held.
The report recommends that the Immigration Department make public what the criteria is for deciding that a detainee poses an "unacceptable risk" to the community.
It also says health checks should be completed within five days and if the Department of Immigration can not establish a person's identity or a security assessment is incomplete within 90 days that a procedure should be developed where they can be released from detention under certain conditions such as strict reporting requirements.
The report recommends that a person detained for longer than 12 months have access to judicial review and those being held be no longer charged for their detention.
Committee chair Michael Danby said the recommendations provide a fair balance between strong border protection and fairness towards those in detention.
"Our inquiry has been committed to restoring dignity, justice and certainty to our treatment of those in immigration detention," he said.
"We have heard a range of views on what contemporary Australian immigration policy should look like and what is clear is that the impacts of prolonged immigration detention and failures in administration have been too high.
The committee is also calling for the policy changes announced by the Government in July to be included in the Migration Act.
A dissenting support by three members of the committee has urged that those who are held for more than 30 days have access to judicial review.
A statement from Mr Evans says the Federal Government will consider the report which will be used in the formation of legislation introduced next year.
Mr Evans says the Government is committed to making sure that security, health and identity checks are done before anyone is released from detention.
He also says the community is entitled to expect that anyone released from detention will not be a danger to the public.
According to Government figures there are almost 280 people in detention.
The committee will release two more reports on immigration detention in 2009.
The Federal Opposition has accused the Government of causing a surge in illegal boat arrivals in the wake of its policy shift but the Government has denied the claims.
Several boats suspected of carrying asylum seekers have been intercepted in Australian waters in the past few months.
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