RSS Feed
March 1st, 2013 
David Schulberg the 3rd 
A group of asylum seekers living in a Sydney home could be subject to tracking if Tony Abbott is elected.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott said today that he supports the idea of ‘tracking’ asylum seekers in the community as he ramped up demands for tighter control of refugee claimants.
Mr Abbott endorsed Liberal immigration spokesman Scott Morrison’s proposals for asylum seekers on bridging visas to be subjected to “mandatory behaviour protocols”, which would include tracking.
He said asylum seekers were “just disappearing into the community” and claimed the Government no longer had control of the system.
At issue is an Opposition call for police registration of people released from detention centres into the community on bridging visas as they wait to see if they are accepted as refugees.
“At the moment we’ve got a situation that boats are coming in ever greater numbers, our detention centres are overflowing, thousands of people have been released into the community without any supervision and the Government has lost control of the system,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Brisbane.
“The Government has to maintain control of the system. This is a Government which has not only lost control of our borders, it’s lost control of boat people once they get into our country.”
Immigration sources today confirmed a small number of people among the 12,000 asylum seekers on bridging visas have not honoured their obligations to tell the Immigration Department when they change address.
One source pointed out a Sri Lankan asylum seeker was arrested by police on sexual assault charges after he was contacted and asked to attend an Immigration Department office in Sydney.
Breaches of the change-of-address obligations could result in them being sent back to detention, and offences committed while on bridging visas would prejudice their chances of refugee settlement.
The Opposition has pledged to “stop the boats” by enforcing off-shore detention, reviving Temporary Protection Visas, and working more closely with Indonesia.
However, it is likely that the cramped conditions in detention centres will mean more asylum seekers will be let out into the community, and that a Coalition government after September would have to manage them.
Mandatory weekly reporting systems would be expensive and difficult to administer.
Tony Abbott today said he had not seen and so could not comment on widely reported remarks by Liberal Senate Leader Eric Abetz to make a loose connection between asylum seekers and sex offenders.
“There is a register in relation to those sex offenders and the community has spoken in relation to that, that they do want a register,” Senator Abetz said on Thursday.
“If I might say, I wouldn’t put the two (paedophiles and asylum seekers) in the same category, necessarily.”
But Mr Abbott said Scott Morrison had been doing a ‘magnificent’ job on the issue.
“But that’s the whole point: The Government doesn’t know where they are,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Brisbane.
“The Government doesn’t know where they are but the Government has to know where they are if they are found to be refugees so they can be notified (or) if they are found not to be refugees so, if appropriate, they can be sent back to their original countries.”
Finance Minister Penny Wong today rejected claims the bridging visas were creating an underclass which could be removed by the use of Temporary Protection Visas.
“There is no easy answer, and anyone who says there is, is wrong,” said Senator Wong.
Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newscomauthenationndm/~3/2lwWnQKPolg/story01.htm
Views: 0
Posted in 
