Talk:Immigration detention in Australia

earlier comments

This article presents the immigration policy in (in my opinion) a rather negative light. As such, I have marked it POV. The article should be updated to reflect recent changes to immigration policy, e.g. children and their families have all been released from detention, and the Palmer report. That would be a step forward to increasing the neutrality of the article. - unsigned comments from 203.102.170.114

I've added a government response to the criticisms of Mandatory detention, to try and balance the article. It certainly needs to be updated with information on recent events, however, so I've chagned the POV tag to an update tag. If you think the article is still POV, I encourage you to edit it and make changes or add additional information. - Borofkin 02:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

The article is justly negative because the majority of public comment has been in criticism of this policy. The policy has been criticised by many well known agencies including the United Nations and therefore to paint it in a positive light would be political rather than factual.

Given that a report by the Australian Senate has harshly criticised the program, a certain amount of....negative light would appear to be more than justified.Starfired81 (talk) 02:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Becouse it may "appear" that all people support the policy does not mean that this article shouldnt be from a nutural point of view. Maybe a heading like 'positives of the policy' (discussing the downturn of boat people) maybe in order. Matt5091 (talk) 07:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

'Boat People'? Let's stay with 'asylum seekers' or refugees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.77.62.41 (talk) 17:30, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Merges

Hmm. Seems someone has suggested a merge without discussing why. At a glance, I would support merging Mandatory detention, although there's not much to merge. Pacific Solution seems to be worth a page of its own, plus a paragraph on this page. Regards, Ben Aveling 00:53, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Don't merge - they are different things - the Pacific Solution is about the offshore processing of asylum seekers; it's different to mandatory detention. (JROBBO 11:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC))

I certainly oppose merging this article with Pacific Solution. I'm not so sure about Mandatory detention, though. Is the term used anywhere else? - Borofkin 02:29, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

After 2 opposes, and no reply since for almost 2 months, I'm removing the merge tag. (JROBBO 13:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC))

Incorporation of new text into article

I tried to incorporate the changes of special:contributions/130.194.13.103, mostly the changes to the introduction, into the article. The changes seemed to add good information, but some were biased against the practice of mandatory detention. Graham/pianoman87 talk 12:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Changes to intro

I've made a few minor changes to the introduction to reflect the fact that mandatory detention is not used only for 'boat people' and that detainees are not necessarily transferred to a facility.

Please clarify

"Australia's longest serving detainee Peter Qasim was detained for over 7 years without charge or trial before being released in 2005"

Immigration detention is not a criminal process so there isn't any cause for being "charged" or "trial" as would happen in a criminal offence ie. robbery. It's just detention. The statement is more emotive than factual. - 4 April 2006 09:45 (AET)

Agreed. This needed to be removed, as it added nothing to the article except a touch of political spin. I have now deleted it.Sporkboy (talk) 15:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

I think this article needs a review. For example, certain terms are being used not merely for descriptive purposes but for their emotional effect. E.g. "...pursuant to which all persons entering or remaining in the country without a valid visa including children are compulsorily detained and may be subject to deportation." Surely it's obvious that "all persons" includes "children" so it serves no obvious benefit to add them separately to this sentence.

GuyIncognito 10:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Australia is unusual in its detention of children, in Sweden the maximum time a child is kept in custody is six days. The fact that children are detained for long periods is very significant against various human rights conventions. Explict mention of this fact is reasonable.--Wm 07:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with you mentioning those facts within the body of the article, but not in the introduction. The fact is that the group "all persons" includes children so it's an unnecessary qualification.

GuyIncognito 07:42, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The article has no reasons supporting mandatory detention. Even if you oppose the policy you should at least mention the reasons why Keating and Hawke imposed the policy in the first place Kransky 09:33, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Introduction

Mandatory detention in Australia refers to the Australian federal government's policy and system of mandatory detention, under which all persons entering or remaining in the country without a valid visa are compulsorily detained.

all remaining without a visa are detained? Firstly, this is inconsistent with other parts of the intro article that state that a bridging visa is normally provided, and secondly is it actually correct? I suspect it isn't. are all those overstaying British backpackers locked up in Villawood? I doubt it.

I also removed the reference to deportation in that first sentence - deportation is not really the issue here. A potential for deportation has always been the case, and not just in Australia but most countries.

Also, who gave the name Pacific Solution. Something tells me it is not the policy's official name. If it is not the name then the term so-called (or equivalent) should precede the phrase, and the Pacific Solution article should be updated.

I also removed unneccessary use of the term pursuant. That belongs more in a legal text book or contract rather than a general-use encyclopedia. No value added by using it.

And do we really need to have the name of the contractor mentioned in the intro of what is a reasonably lengthy and broad article? --Merbabu 23:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

References

Title

The article title should be changed to "Mandatory detention of refugees in Australia" to clarify the target population of the policy. Nicktropical 02:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing else that "mandatory detention" refers to in Australia, so there's no need to clarify the title. I've heard it mentioned in the media as just "mandatory detention". Graham87 02:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

It's also incorrect to refer to those detained as "refugees". A refugee is a person who has been through a successful process to determine the legitimacy of their claim to asylum. An asylum seeker is a person who has claimed asylum, i.e. requested that a decision be made on their status. What this article is about is Mandatory detention of unauthorised arrivals to Australia, however I agree with Graham that the term "mandatory detention" is unambiguous, and therefore the title should stay as it is. The only other form of mandatory imprisonment of which I am aware is known as mandatory sentencing. - Borofkin 03:01, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

A refugee is someone who has fled a situation which they find intolerable. A person does not need to receive offical recognition to be a refugee any more than a person needs a bith certificate to be born.Harrypotter 08:07, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Critics

No mention of Merlin from Big Brother? lol. OK, it's a bit silly, but it was a major incident in Australian pop culture.

Children alone in detention?

I see the references to children in detention have been removed from this article. Similar information about children in detention was also removed from the John Howard article. --Lester 02:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

One gratuitous reference removed, one amplified. You don't want our encyclopaedia to give the impression that children are detained without their families, do you? --Pete 04:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

In some cases, children were detained without their families. If it happened, it happened. There's no reason to cover up the facts. Why would we want that excised from an article on Mandatory Detention?--Lester 06:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

If children were detained by themselves, it was probably exceptional. We don't want to give an incorrect impression - the usual reason for detaining children was because they arrived in Australia with their families but without visas. Let's stick with the facts. --Pete 17:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

It's really POV to suggest that the nature of the article should be skewed towards just children. With regards to "seek" versus "claim" reverts you made, the easy solution is - what do the sources say. Shot info 00:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the fact is that there were children detained, and a number of them were alone, so I don't know why you removed the reference to children from the intro. Also, you changed "seek" asylum to "claim" asylum, which is incorrect. Asylum is something that is granted by the government, so people can't claim that they have it. They come, seeking that asylum be granted.--Lester 20:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

'Shot Info', I didn't say the article should be "skewed towards children". However, the issue of children in detention was a major issue, and formed a major part of the controversy, so should be mentioned in the intro.--Lester 01:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi folks... this edit removed much content from this article regarding criticism of mandatory detention. I'm not sure why -- it was by an anon who has made no other edits. Perhaps some of it should be restored? Regarding detention of unaccompanied children, this page says "On 25 September 2003 there were 83 children in detention on the Australian mainland and 16 offshore on Christmas Island—99 children in all out of a total of 1117 immigration detainees. Three of the children detained on Christmas Island, four at Villawood IDC and one at Port Hedland IDC were unaccompanied." Furthermore, the HREOC report on children in detention states, "Between 1 January 1999 and 30 June 2002, 285 unaccompanied children arrived in Australia without a visa seeking asylum and they were all detained. The highest number of unaccompanied children in detention was in mid-2001, when there were over 100 unaccompanied children in detention in Australia." - Borofkin 01:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm concerned about the words in the intro which says the detained children were with family members. This is the line:
"Between 1999-2001, over 2000 children, together with family members, were held inside immigration detention centres commissioned by the Australian government"

My understanding is that families were very often split up. To user:Skyring, I thank you for modifying rather than deleting, but I think this info requires some verification. Thanks, --Lester 13:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I've created a new section "National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention" and added a sentence about unnacompanied children. I've also modified the introduction so that it says "mostly with family members". I think this reflects reality -- the vast majority of children were detailed along with their families. - Borofkin 04:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Small update needed re: end of pacific solution

Probably best to move it from the introduction text to the history section below. 123.2.12.65 (talk) 07:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

SBS Timeline of Mandatory Detention

This week, SBS published a timeline for Mandatory Detention in Australia. It should serve as a template of events to be included in this article. --Lester 05:36, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Mandatory Detention has not ended

Reading Chris Evans' speech,[1] and the news releases, it is clear to me that mandatory detention has not ended. (In fact it includes the point "Mandatory detention is an essential component of strong border control") As far as I can tell, the only thing real change is that detention has to be justified every 3 months by the Department of Immigration. I think that means that "boat people" can expect to be out after 3 months, but perhaps it's all spin and they'll still be detained indefinitely. Is that a fair assessment? Peter Ballard (talk) 12:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Point NUMBER ONE in that speech is that Mandatory Detention is "ESSENTIAL". In other words, the ALP fully support the concept and practice of mandatory detention (they introduced it, after all). There is not much to stop someone being detained indefinitely, although by my reading of the speech, a duration must be specified initially, and 'reviewed' (i.e. extended) every three months. The only real change is that children will no longer be detained in IDCs. --Surturz (talk) 12:26, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I would not argue that those opinions are held by Chris Evans and the ALP, and that such detentions continue. --Lester 05:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality

This article is very anti-Liberal. It must be changed to ensure neutrality. Nathan.tang (talk) 11:58, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It appears someone does not like the fact posted that the illegals could leave Australia anytime they wanted to, even if they were detained~

Scrappy

This article is pretty scrappy. For example, the Rudd section seems to deal with future wishes from early on in the Rudd government - understandable, of course - rather than what actually occurred, which didn't quite match the dream.

That use of "incarcerated" is very POV. "Housed" seems better. --Pete (talk) 13:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Photos

The photos of the detainees were taken by myself using a zoom lens and are not a breach of copyright, photos of the very same people were also in the news-paper and on the television so there would not be any breach of privacy. ***Adam*** (talk) 08:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

New immi.gov.au link

Along with changing terminology from 'unauthorised' to 'unlawful', some of the immi.gov.au links have changed for stats: [2]. Many of the fact sheets are under review, too. --Surturz (talk) 01:41, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Absurd laws

NPR reported in its article "'I Felt Like I Was A Slave'; Report Slams Conditions For Refugees On Nauru" that "Asylum-seekers are held by Australian authorities on Nauru indefinitely for attempting to get to Australia by boat. Even if authorities determine they qualify for refugee status, under Australia's strict migration laws people held on Nauru are not allowed to settle in Australia." How strange coming from a country whose ancestors were exiled criminals from Great Britain. -213.74.186.109 (talk) 04:31, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Overlapping content

It was only after I had finished doing a tidy-up of the Timeline section in the Asylum in Australia article that I looked properly at the History section in this article and saw the huge amount of overlap. I don't have time to spend on this now but am just raising it here as I think it could do with some discussion as to how best to tackle the overlap and duplication in order to keep relevant material in one place and avert further duplication and/or holes in either narrative. It would be best to combine the info and keep the bulk of it in one place, with appropriate direction from other articles. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:37, 23 February 2019 (UTC)