|
Australian govt apologizes for immigration mistakes
Published on: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 09:28:28 GMT
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has apologised to two women mistreated by immigration officials after a damning official report detailed how one was wrongly locked up for 10 months and another was mistakenly deported to the Philippines.
Howard announced sweeping changes to the immigration department's senior ranks following the report by former federal police commissioner Mick Palmer. Department head Bill Farmer preemptively quit earlier this week and has been appointed as the next Indonesian ambassador.
But the prime minister ruled out sacking Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone, saying that overseeing Australia's immigration system was a difficult task and that he had full confidence in the minister.
Releasing the Palmer report, Vanstone said, "the government acknowledges these mistakes and accepts that changes need to be made within the department".
The government commissioned the report earlier this year to find out how German-born Australian resident Cornelia Rau spent 10 months behind bars as an illegal immigrant when she should have been receiving treatment for a psychiatric condition.
It later emerged that another woman, Vivian Alvarez Solon, was mistakenly deported to the Philippines in 2001 after officials failed to realise that she was an Australian resident who had been listed as a missing person.
The Palmer report found that Alvarez Solon was a "partial quadriplegic" at the time she was deported. Her lawyers have said she was so incapacitated she could not sign her name and had to use a thumb print as a signature.
"Both Cornelia Rau and Mrs. Alvarez (Solon) are owed apologies for their treatment, and on behalf of the government I give those apologies to both of those women who were the victims of mistakes by the department," Howard told reporters.
The prime minister rejected opposition calls for a royal commission into 201 cases of alleged wrongful detention by the immigration department, including the Rau and Alvarez Solon cases.
He also refused to discuss the issue of compensation for Rau and Alvarez Solon.
Lawyers for Alvarez Solon, who was found in a Manila hospice for the dying after widespread publicity about her case, said Howard's apology was meaningless unless the government improved its offer to bring her back to Australia and to provide her with at least six months' care and housing.
"If they were serious about an apology, they would commit to an appropriate care package for Vivian, so she can return to the country -- otherwise it's just crocodile tears," lawyer George Newhouse said.
Palmer recommended a review of the contracts awarded to private security companies to run Australia's immigration camps.
He also said the immigration department was too bureaucratic, with over-worked officers given extraordinary powers to implement policies formulated on the run.
"The fact that this situation has been allowed to continue unchecked and unreviewed for several years is difficult to understand," he said.
Australia's immigration policy until recently allowed for the mandatory and unlimited detention of illegal immigrants, including children, and has been widely criticised by human rights groups domestically and abroad.
|