Gerard McManus
26 May 05

THE number of people who may have been wrongfully detained or mistakenly deported by the Department of Immigration has soared with 200 cases now being investigated.

Senator Amanda Vanstone has referred dozens of possible wrongful detention to former federal police chief Mick Palmer for investigation in the wake of the bungle over mentally ill Australian resident Cornelia Rau.

She flagged major changes to the way her department handles detainees, including setting up a specialist unit to verify identities and appointing immigration detention review managers in every state.

"To move ahead, it is important to have a clean slate," she told a Senate estimates hearing yesterday.

But with her department under increasing scrutiny over the scandal, Senator Vanstone and her own officials were at odds with Prime Minister John Howard yesterday over whether a newborn baby should be locked up in detention or not.

Mr Howard assured Parliament that the baby of a Vietnamese asylum-seeker family detained on Christmas Island would be allowed to live in community detention in Western Australia.

But for most of yesterday Senator Vanstone and departmental officials contradicted Mr Howard, maintaining that baby Michael Andrew Tran and his family would be with his family back on Christmas Island.

When Labor Senator Chris Evans said officials were even contradicting the Prime Minister, Senator Vanstone accused him of "badgering" the public servants.

Baby Michael was born under guard at Perth's King Edward Memorial Hospital on Monday. His Vietnamese parents have been held on the island off the northwest of Western Australia since July 2003.

But with Opposition Leader Kim Beazley pushing for a royal commission into the Immigration Department, Senator Vanstone revealed her department had uncovered files of more than 200 people wrongfully detained.

"We have a major scandal that demands a proper royal commission and the sacking of the minister concerned," Mr Beazley said.

Senator Vanstone also tried to pre-empt the findings of the Palmer inquiry by outlining a range of proposed changes to stop further mishaps.

"I have asked the department to go back as far as the records allow us to go and to take out each case that is released as 'released not unlawful' and all of them will go to the Palmer inquiry, every single one of them," she told a Senate estimates committee hearing.

Among changes are improvements to identification, including biometric technology, and more regular visits by psychiatrists to the Baxter detention centre.