MORE THAN 1000 CHILDREN IN LOCKED UP IN IMMIGRATION FACILITIES

Samantha Maiden From: Sunday Herald Sun January 30, 2011
JULIA Gillard is locking up more than 1000 children in immigration facilities, beating the Howard Government's "cruel" record.
And rising numbers of boatpeople turning to people smugglers to fast-track their claims are locking out thousands of asylum seekers waiting in overseas refugee camps.

The Coalition will move to guarantee places for asylum seekers who are languishing in overseas refugee camps when Parliament resumes, accusing the Prime Minister of allowing people smugglers to run Australia's refugee intake.

Despite vowing to release women and children from detention when Labor was elected, new figures obtained by the Sunday Herald Sun confirm 1046 minors are being held in detention.The previous high-water mark was nearly 10 years ago when 842 children where held in detention in September, 2001, according to the Human Rights Commission.

After seizing the top job last year, the Prime Minister vowed to adopt a humane approach to asylum seekers, noting her own background as a child migrant.

"Australia's basic decency does not accept the idea of punishing women and children by locking them up behind razor wire," Ms Gillard said in a speech to the Lowy Institute last year.

But Opposition spokesman Scott Morrison said the hypocrisy of Labor's failed border protection policies were exposed by yet another record broken on children in detention.

"There's nothing compassionate about a policy that encourages people to get on boats, especially children," he said.

Refugee advocate Pamela Curr said the Gillard government was "no better than the last".

"The PM announced last year that children will be released from detention. I can tell you I understand four unaccompanied minors have been released," she said.

"I want to know when it starts."

Ms Curr said the Government had suggested 700 women and children would be released by June, but to date she believed only about 20 women who were about to give birth or had very young babies had also been released into community detention.

While the number of refugees Australia accepts has remained static, at about 13,000, the number of applicants who apply from offshore refugee camps has plunged from 7668 six years ago to 3233 people last year, as the number of boatpeople arriving exploded.

Mr Morrison said: "The cruel fact of Labor's failed border protection and immigration policies is to reward asylum seekers who can afford to get on boats at the expense of those who can't.

"The minister's own figures confirm this cruel outcome for the thousands waiting off shore for Australia's protection.

"The Coalition has put forward a motion to quarantine 10,000 places in our refugee and humanitarian program for offshore applicants.

"These places would go to the most deserving cases, as decided by the Australian Government, not people smugglers."

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said visas granted for asylum seekers arriving by boat had always been taken from the capped Humanitarian Program category, including under the previous government.

He said that, bizarrely, the Opposition would prefer a first-in, best-dressed system, with a cap of 3750 claims for offshore protection in Australia that would create a scramble to make the cut, leaving the rest to go into arbitrary and indefinite detention.