Forgeting the for and against arguements for the detention centres - How the hell can the government justify these costs as being anywhere near realistic.
$10Mil to repair damage to centres during riots in 2002-03
This is to repair/replace mainly transportable prefab type buildings and some furniture and fencing - what a joke
Write off $90mil bad debts
I assume this is costs charge to asylum seekers for application processing.
Between $415 and $627 per day per person to keep these people in detention.
It would be cheaper to put them up in a 5 star hotel.
90% of asylum seekers get visa Mark Phillips 29oct03
NINE out of 10 asylum-seekers who arrived in Australia illegally by boat have been granted protection visas.
In the three years from July 1999 to June 2002, 9160 boat people, mainly from Afghanistan and Iraq, applied for pro-tection visas and 8260 were found to be in need of protection. The Immigration Department's annual report said the majority received three-year temporary protection visas.
The department admitted it will never recover $90 million owed by hundreds of failed asylum-seekers for the time they were held.
The department's annual report, tabled yesterday in Federal Parliament, said the bad debts would be written off.
The report also reveals that riots and fires in detention centers, mainly during the Christmas-New Year period, caused about $10 million damage in 2002-3.
The bad debts for time spent in detention is a figure accumulated over several years, but included in the department's financial statements for the first time this year.
At $90 million, it was far more than the $37 million first estimated by the department. Under the Migration Act, any person removed from Australia is liable for their detention costs and airfares.
The Immigration Department concedes it will rarely recover the debt, but people who owe detention costs can be refused re-entry.
Daily detention costs vary from $415 a person at Baxter to $627 a day on Christmas Island.
