Prominent barrister and asylum seeker advocate Julian Burnside QC is proposing the entire state of Tasmania be declared an immigration detention centre.
Mr Burnside has been in Hobart to talk about the off-shore processing of asylum seekers.
He floated the idea at a public lecture saying the entire state of Tasmania could be a place of detention for asylum seekers who arrive by boat.
He has previously criticised both the Labor Party’s Papua New Guinea solution, as well as the Coalition’s plan to process asylum claims in the Pacific.
Mr Burnside is instead suggesting his own ‘Tasmanian solution’.
“If politicians are obsessed with the idea that asylum seekers must be kept in detention then that could be legally satisfied by declaring the island of Tasmania a place of detention,” he said.
“Have officers of the Commonwealth at each port of departure and then allow the asylum seekers to live in the community in Tasmania. They would still legally be in detention.”
Mr Burnside says the solution would be the equivalent of community detention and save money.
“That would save on my estimates, in fact on government estimates, around about $3 billion a year.”
“It would look exactly like community detention, although as a matter of law it would look like immigration detention.
“The point of it, of course, is that it’s much less damaging to the people involved and it would be far less expensive even if every one of them received full Centrelink benefits, which they’d spend in the Tasmanian community.”
He has suggested the Federal Government give the Tasmanian Government $1 billion a year as “a thank you”.
“At least that would have the benefit of according with history because Tasmania was used as a place of detention some years ago.”
He believes community support for the Pontville Detention Centre near Hobart shows Tasmanians are more welcoming of asylum seekers and he would like to see them housed in rural areas.
Asylum seekers have been detained at Pontville since 2011, most recently hundreds of unaccompanied children.
Most have now been released into community detention.
• The Tasmanian Asylum Seeker Support Service: Did you know that the electorate of Denison (where many of us live) was shown by ABC’s ‘Vote Compass’ to be one of the most sympathetic to asylum seekers in the country? Over the last three years, we have proved that asylum seekers are welcome here; we have forged literally hundreds of amazing friendships, and had a significant impact on the nature of the asylum seeker debate in our part of the world. HERE
