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RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA
Detaining, Deporting Citizens
By Stephen de Tarczynski
MELBOURNE, Mar 18, 2008 (IPS) - The Rudd government is hoping that the high-profile case of an Australian resident wrongfully detained in the country’s immigration detention system for more than ten months has been brought to a close. But this alarming case is far from being an isolated one.
Earlier this month, German citizen and Australian permanent resident, Cornelia Rau, accepted the government’s AUD 2.6 million (2.6 million US dollars) compensation offer for being wrongfully detained by immigration authorities from March 2004 until February 2005.
The former air hostess was detained in the northern state of Queensland on Mar.31 2004, two weeks after absconding from Manly Hospital in Sydney. According to an inquiry conducted by former Australian Federal Police commissioner, Mick Palmer, Rau had suffered from periodic psychotic episodes since the 1990s, for which she was occasionally hospitalised.
Despite her disappearance, Rau’s family did not contact police until five months later. Rau had absconded from care in the past but had always "surfaced". That the family had also recently reported Rau as missing - in December 2003 - only for her to turn up shortly after, added to their reluctance to contact police.
After coming to the attention of Queensland police following a report by a local publican about a "young German tourist" with no money, Rau was arrested on suspicion of being an unlawful non-citizen. Rau gave her name as Anna and provided different surnames as well as conflicting accounts of her German origins, the length of time she had been in Australia and how she arrived in the country.
While Palmer concluded that Rau gave deliberately misleading personal information - he argues that she did not wish to be found - he was also critical of the Immigration Department’s culture, lack of comprehensive assessment and review processes, and the fact that Rau was detained at Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre - despite not having committed an offence - for six months before being moved to the now-defunct Baxter Immigration Detention Centre.
Rau was finally identified and released after the Rau family was alerted by friends to a newspaper report in which they thought that "a mystery woman" being held at Baxter detention centre could be Cornelia Rau.
"This was obviously a terrible experience for Ms Rau and we hope this settlement will enable Ms Rau to finally move forward with her life," said Immigration Minister Chris Evans in a statement on March 7 following Rau’s acceptance of the compensation offer.
The previous government, under John Howard, had offered AUD1.6 million (1.47 dollars) to compensate Rau, while the current government has been keen to have the case settled. And although the Rau family hopes the compensation deal represents a closure to Rau’s public ordeal, her case is far from an isolated one.
"We are talking about the tip of the iceberg," says Pamela Curr from the Asylum Centre Resource Centre.
Aside from Rau’s, there have been other high-profile cases of wrongful detention and deportation of Australian citizens and residents. Vivian Alvarez Solon - who also had a history of psychological problems - was unlawfully deported in 2001. Originally from the Philippines, Alvarez Solon had become a naturalised Australian citizen in 1986, two years after marrying an Australian man.
Despite a 2005 inquiry by the Commonwealth ombudsman finding that senior officers from the Immigration Department were aware that an Australian citizen had been wrongfully deported, no action was taken. It was not until 2005, following an email from Robert Young - Alvarez Solon’s former husband - to the office of then-minister for immigration, Amanda Vanstone, that the government took action.
Even so, Alvarez Solon - whose removal from Australia was blamed on organisational failures - was not easily located despite being in the same Catholic hospice to which she was taken upon her arrival. Eventually found, Alvarez Solon returned to Australia in November 2005 and was awarded some AUD 4.4 million (4 million dollars) in compensation.
Following these cases, the Howard government referred the investigation of 247 other cases of immigration detention, over a 14 year period from 1993, to the ombudsman, Prof. John McMillan. The summary report, released in August last year, found that in each of these cases, people were either Australian citizens, valid visa holders or whose circumstances - such as a court case - required the person to be released.
The report highlighted systemic failures in immigration detention, with McMillan finding that errors had occurred in many of the 247 cases. In one case, an Australian citizen of Vietnamese origin was detained on three occasions between 1999 and 2003 - with one detention period lasting eight months - on suspicion of being an unlawful non-citizen.
In another 45 cases, data errors were found to have occurred, resulting in the wrongful detention of 42 legal non-citizens at the behest of the immigration department.
"This is why we say it is imperative that the current system of mandatory detention be dismantled," Pamela Curr told IPS.
In Australia, a person found to be without a valid visa is subject to mandatory detention. Mandatory detention faced renewed calls for its scrapping in the wake of the Mohammed Haneef affair last year. The Indian doctor’s visa was cancelled on the same day that a magistrate granted him bail, thereby ensuring his further detention.
Curr criticises the law that enables authorities to "take people into detention based on a reasonable belief" that they are unlawful non-citizens.
"Based on that, hundreds of Australian citizens have been illegally detained…They have been subjected to the same brutal treatment as any asylum seeker," she argues.
Following the ombudsman’s report, former immigration minister Kevin Andrews ordered his department to contact the 247 former detainees. However, the process is taking longer than expected.
It was reported last week that of the 28 former detainees in Queensland, only four had been located by the department. While one person has received an undisclosed financial compensation, the other three cases are still being assessed.
Curr describes the situation as a "scandal in the making" for which the Rudd government will pay. "Somebody has to pay," she told IPS.
(END)
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