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March 30th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Immigration Minister Chris Bowen insists the federal government won’t have to front a court if an asylum seeker spends more than 90 days in detention.
A parliamentary committee has recommended giving people in immigration detention the right to appeal their incarceration if they are given adverse security assessments.
The 379-page final report, given to Mr Bowen on Friday, also suggested that any decision to hold someone for more than 90 days be made public.
This was supported by Labor and Greens members on the committee but opposed by the coalition.
Mr Bowen said the 90-day recommendation did not mean the government would have to go before a court if it wanted to hold someone for longer.
“It doesn’t say, and I would not accept, that the government should then have to seek permission from somebody else,” he told ABC television on Friday night.
“So where we’ve got somebody whose identity couldn’t be established in 90 days, for complex reasons, they’d be special cases.”
The parliamentary committee, chaired by Labor MP Daryl Melham, spent nine months investigating Australia’s immigration detention network.
“To this end, the committee recommends that all reasonable steps be taken to limit detention to 90 days, and that where people are held any longer, the reasons for their prolonged detention be made public,” Mr Melham said.
Deputy chair and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said 90 days was the period medical professionals repeatedly told the committee was the limit before detainees’ mental health started to deteriorate.
“If we can get people out of the system before that 90-day period … they will be much healthier people,” she said.
But in their dissenting report, the coalition noted it did not support the 90-day detention recommendation.
“We believe that mandatory detention should be in place until someone’s status has been determined,” Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said.
Of the 5000 or so people in detention, more than 62 per cent have been locked up for more than 90 days and others for 18 months or more – at an annual cost of more than $600 million, according to 2011/12 projections.
The committee also recommended Australian Security intelligence Organisation (ASIO) legislation be amended to allow the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to review assessments.
It also expressed concerns about keeping children in detention and further recommended the immigration minister be replaced as guardian of unaccompanied minors and that a uniform child protection code be implemented across the immigration system.
However, Labor and Greens MPs on the committee disagreed on how best to enforce a 90-day detention maximum.
The Greens favour legislation but Mr Melham said it would be difficult to enforce.
Mr Bowen said the government wanted to see as few people as possible in detention and that there were now just 3600 – a reduction of more than 2500 in a year.
Refugee Council of Australia chief executive Paul Power said the committee recommendations laid down a positive pathway for refugee and asylum seeker policy.
“Without legislated time limits, immigration detention remains indefinite, often with serious consequences for detainees,” Mr Power said.
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