June 17, 2005
The Age

Prime Minister John Howard says he has reached a compromise agreement with rebel Liberal MPs over changes to the government's mandatory detention policy.

But Mr Howard said the framework of the government's policy was intact.

"Mandatory detention will remain," he said.

"We will maintain our strong position on border protection, that is the excision of islands, the maintenance of offshore processing, and . . . the policy of turning boats around."

Mr Howard said although there was strong support for the existing policy, the government would take the opportunity to see it was administered more fairly, flexibly and in a timely manner.

He said the government would amend the Migration Act to allow families seeking asylum in Australia to be released from detention centres.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone will be given new powers to specify alternative arrangements for a person's detention and grant visas to detainees at her own discretion.

"The purpose of this, in shorthand, is to enable the detention of families with children to take place in the community where conditions would be set to meet their individual circumstances,'' he said.

"I stress their legal status would still be that of detention.

"They won't be given visas except if they meet entitlements for visas under other circumstances.''

Mr Howard said the Migration Act would also be changed to allow the immigration minister to grant visas to detainees.

"The purpose of that is to give more flexibility and discretion to the minister,'' he said.

"But I stress both of those powers will be non compellable.

"In other words, they will be exercised at the discretion of the minister.

"We would not want children to be detained except as a last resort.''

Mr Howard said there would be a number of changes relating to the timing of the assessment of those in detention.

A primary decision on a person's detention will be required to be taken within three months.

The Refugee Review Tribunal will also have to make its decisions within three months.

"If that doesn't happen, there's no automatic consequence other than the requirement that regular reports be tabled in parliament detailing cases that haven't met those time limits,'' he said.

"In a number of those cases not meeting those time limits is not the fault of the department.''

For every person in detention more than two years, the immigration department will have to report to the ombudsman on the circumstances surrounding the detention.

The ombudsman will then make a report, and recommendation, to the immigration minister.

Mr Howard stressed that although the ombudsman would make recommendations, those recommendations would not be binding on the minister.

The prime minister said the department would also expedite its primary assessments of applications for permanent protection visas from the people on temporary protection visas.

There are about 4,000 outstanding cases of people on temporary protection visas.

Their cases will be assessed by October 31.

"They will look at the documentation and unless there is disposition to reject it then it won't be necessary for a further interview to take place,'' Mr Howard said.

He said the implementation of the changes would be overseen by an interdepartmental committee chaired by Peter Shergold, secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

The changes have been prompted by a plan by rebel backbencher Petro Georgiou, backed by a handful of his coalition colleagues, to table two private members bills to water down the mandatory detention policy.

"The member for Kooyong (Mr Georgiou) has informed me he will be withdrawing his private members bills, of which he has given notice,'' Mr Howard said.

The bills were due to be tabled on Monday.

Mr Howard said the agreed changes represented a sensible advance on the present arrangements.

"They don't in any way undermine the existing policy,'' he said.

"There is no substitution of judicial review or independent officer review of government decisions. There is the introduction of a number of long overdue, I believe, changes to accelerate the process.

''(They) meet a very strongly recurring criticism in the party room - that is, that everything was taking too long.''

Mr Howard said the party had dealt with the issue well.

"This is a very good outcome for the Liberal Party,'' he said.

"We have dealt with an issue, and we have dealt with it maturely and openly and we have dealt with it in a way that is respectful to the views of the colleagues who are in a minority.

"Also, in the end the majority view, in a sensitive way, of the partyroom has prevailed and that is how it should be.

"I regard this as the mature behaviour of a successful political party.''

Mr Howard said he had spent seven or eight hours in talks with the dissenting MPs. He described it as time well spent.

He said he had kept in touch with Senator Vanstone on the issue throughout his talks.

"It's time well spent and we've handled an issue,'' he said.