Softer stance on asylum seeker kids

Sydney
15 December 2002

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Softer stance on asylum seeker kids

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Softer stance on asylum seeker kids

Moves towards releasing children from asylum seeker detention centres have been welcomed by the bishops.

Before the moves were announced, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference had expressed its ongoing concern at the incarceration of children in the centres.

The bishops had pressed for alleviation of the conditions of asylum seekers in detention.

And they had called for the release of children from detention into the community, preferably with their parents, or at the very least, with their mothers.

Then the Federal Government and the Opposition announced their policy changes.

Bishop Eugene Hurley, whose South Australian diocese of Port Pirie takes in both the Woomera and Baxter detention centres, commended the Government’s decision to remove unaccompanied children from the high security environment of detention.

He also welcomed the move to expand eligibility criteria to allow more children and family members to live in the community as part of the Woomera alternative detention project.

“We affirm the need for children, ideally accompanied by their parents, and at the very least by their mothers, to live in the community, free to grow into fully rounded people,” he said.

“We are also encouraged by the Opposition’s policy of processing asylum claims within 90 days and keeping whole families together in alternative detention arrangements.

“We recognise the need for people to undergo health and identity checks, but not to be held indefinitely in detention at great risk to their physical and mental health.”

He noted the initiatives of the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs towards enrolling children from detention centres in local schools at Roxby Downs, Port Hedland, Derby, Sydney, Adelaide and, hopefully, Port Augusta.

The Australian Catholic Social Justice Council and the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office welcomed the moves by the two major political parties towards more humane treatment of asylum seekers.

Bishop Patrick Dougherty, chairman of the Bishops’ Committee for Migrants and Refugees, the moves “show that the community is now ready to move beyond its current approach to processing arrivals”.

Changes to the Government’s detention policy “are positive for women and children and unaccompanied minors”, he said.

Bishop William Morris, chairman of the Social Justice Council, said it was pleasing to note that the Labor Party policy included variations of ideas propounded by the council and the Australian and NSW Conferences of Leaders of Religious Institutes.

“The limit of detention to 90 days is welcomed, as is the intention to end the indefinite continuity of temporary protection visas,” he said.

But he was disappointed that the policy “proposes continuing the processing of boat people offshore, at the new high-security centre on Christmas Island, and does not provide access to the legal system”.