Down And Out - Pell Melee. Cardinal Sins

Down And Out - Pell Melee. Cardinal Sins

- Anne Susskind

SCHOOL DETENTION IN MY NECK of the woods is now called “after school reflection”. At break time, it’s “in school reflection”. My son tells me it’s not politically correct to call it detention anymore. I ask him why and his reply: “Those people just sit there coming up with ideas to piss people off.” Quite right too.

There are no such qualms in the May statistics on “Time in Immigration Detention Facilities” from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. [Which might just explain Australian touchiness about use of the word. – Ed.] The numbers show 1,400 immigrants in detention in May (including 343 visa over-stayers), with the average time in detention being 443 days, and 319 people in custody for more than two years. In 2013 when this figure peaked at 13,000, about 2,000 children were in detention “due to an increase in irregular maritime arrivals.

Clearly the federal government’s punitive policies have been effective deterrents. That, coupled with an agreement this month to compensate 1,900 asylum-seekers formerly held at the Manus Island Detention Centre. In terms of the conditional court settlement, the government is to pay the asylum-seekers a settlement of $70 million plus costs, to be distributed according to their length of detention and severity of their alleged injuries.