KEY POINTS:
Australia has dumped its harsh practice of imprisoning all asylum seekers behind razor wire in remote detention camps.
Reversing an uncompromising and widely condemned policy introduced by former Prime Minister Paul Keating's Labor Government more than a decade ago, boat people and other illegal migrants will be allowed to live in the community while their claims are processed.
After identities, health and security checks are completed, the only people to remain in detention will be those assessed as presenting "unacceptable risks" to the community, and others who repeatedly refuse to comply with visa conditions.
The detention of children will be explicitly banned, a policy urged by a series of reports detailing appalling stories of physical, sexual and psychological abuse.
"The detention of children behind razor wire and the obvious damage done to them caused outrage in the Australian community," Immigration Minister Chris Evans said yesterday.
The new policy could mean the release of many of the 357 people still in detention, whose cases will now be reviewed under new criteria already used by Evans in a personal assessment of 72 people held in detention for more than two years.
Evans said that 31 should not have been in detention and were now on their way to gaining visas, 24 would be deported and the remaining 17 were subject to ongoing legal proceedings.
But he emphasised that Labor would maintain a hard line on illegal migration, including the initial detention of asylum seekers until health and security checks had been completed.
Next week he and Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus will lead a delegation of senior officials to Southeast Asia to "reinvigorate" close co-operation against people smugglers and any revival of the fleets of boat people that originally spurred the previous policy of mandatory, and often indefinite, detention.
"With massive displacement of persons in the Middle East and Asia, caused by conflict and natural disasters along with well-established people-smuggling operations, the potential for large numbers of unauthorised arrivals remains real," Evans said.
"Australia's national interest demands we continue our efforts to prevent people smuggling to our shores."
But he attacked the previous policy of mandatory detention, which he said was punitive and, at a cost of A$220 million ($285 million) a year, had brought great shame on Australia.
In the past decade the United Nations Human Rights Committee made 14 adverse findings against Australia's detention policy, determining it to be in breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
"Labor rejects the notion that dehumanising and punishing unauthorised arrivals with detention is an effective or civilised response," Evans said.
The major camps and Woomera and Baxter, in South Australia, and others at Nauru and Papua New Guinea, have already been closed.
The Christmas Island centre will remain open but allow for open detention, and Sydney's Villawood centre is being upgraded.
Detention will now be based on seven principles, including the policy that mandatory detention remains essential, requiring initial detention for all illegal migrants to assess health and security, continuing for those presenting unacceptable risks or not complying with visa conditions.
Children and juveniles aboard fishing boats illegally operating in Australian waters will not be confined in detention centres; indefinite or arbitrary detention will not be allowed; detention will be used only as a last resort, for the shortest practicable time; and detainees will be treated fairly.
The new policy has been welcomed by refugee and civil rights groups. Refugee advocacy group A Just Australia said the decision to end an appalling, inhumane and failed policy should be celebrated as a major victory for human rights in Australia.
But the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education, while applauding the move, said many people had been seriously damaged by the previous policy, including those forced to return to live in fear and hiding.
"This is unfinished business," centre director Phil Glendenning said.
"Australia still has a responsibility to those people it has damaged through this policy, whether they are still on these shores or still running for their lives in other countries."
BACK TO HUMANITY
The Rudd Government's immigration reforms:
* Mandatory detention is an essential component of strong border control.
* To support the integrity of Australia's immigration program three groups will be subject to mandatory detention: All unauthorised arrivals, unlawful non-citizens who present unacceptable risks, unlawful non-citizens who have repeatedly refused to comply with their visa conditions.
* Children and, where possible, their families, will not be detained in an immigration detention centre.
* Detention that is indefinite is not acceptable and the length and conditions of detention would be subject to regular review. Detention in immigration detention centres is only to be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time.
- AAP
