Some good news! Migration Minister responds positively to public and parliamentary concerns

Regular readers of Crikey (and this blog) might recall some stories back in September last year detailing just one example of the gross injustice (and utter absurdity) of Australia’s policy to charge people locked up in immigration detention for the cost of their imprisonment.

This practice has been widely criticised for many years, including in the  majority report of a Senate Committee I was part of back in 2006.  At the end of last year, all the members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Migration – featuring MPs from Liberal, Labor and the Greens – unanimously recommended that “as a priority, the Australian Government introduce legislation to repeal the liability of immigration detention costs” and “waive existing detention debts for all current and former detainees.”

Yesterday Immigration Minister Chris Evans announced he was acting on these concerns, introducing legislation that will give effect to these recommendations.

It appears the legislation will still allow the costs of detention to be charged against convicted illegal foreign fishers and convicted people smugglers, an aspect which I think requires further examination.  However, the legislation as a whole is still very welcome.

We tend to be very quick to gripe about politicians when they do things we dislike, which is as it should be.  But we’re often not so quick to praise them when they do something right.  So a word of congratulations must go to Minister Evans for his actions in this area.

Making changes in this area still invites some political risk, although the fact that it is acting on a recommendation which was supported by Liberal MPs will hopefully avert any politics being played with this eminently sensible measure.