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Immigration reform bill pushed in Australia

A rebel government lawmaker pushed ahead yesterday with a move to ease controversial immigration detention laws after failing to reach an agreement with Prime Minister John Howard.

Veteran government member of parliament (MP) Petro Georgiou was presenting legislation to reform the laws to a selection committee yesterday and it could be introduced in parliament as soon as Monday, his office told reporters.

Georgiou leads a group of more than 10 government MPs pressing for reforms of Australia's policy of mandatory detention for illegal immigrants and asylum seekers after the exposure of a series of blunders and family hardships.

The rebels are planning to cross the floor of parliament to vote against the government on the issue, a rare show of dissent in the conservative administration noted for its internal discipline.

Georgiou and his supporters held a series of meetings with Howard as the prime minister tried to head off a damaging split, but talks on Monday night failed to produce agreement.

Two parliamentary bills backed by the rebels would free children, their parents and long-term detainees from immigration camps.

One of Georgiou's supporters, Judy Moylan, told ABC news the changes Howard has offered to make to immigration detention did not go far enough, but that the group was still open to discussions.

Howard, who had promised proposals to make the existing process faster, more flexible and more humane, also said talks would continue.

But a spokesman told reporters he was adamant that he would not agree to any changes which undermined the framework of mandatory detention, which is widely credited with halting a flood of boat people to Australia in the late 1990s.

"Areas where he thought flexibility could be introduced were the areas of children and also in terms of a speedier process," the spokesman said.

Australia's policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers has come under fire from rights groups and the UN but the government says it is necessary to discourage people smugglers and protect the nation's borders.

Criticism intensified this year after revelations a German-born Australian resident, Cornelia Rau, was wrongly detained as an illegal immigrant for 10 months.

Shortly afterwards authorities admitted that a Philippines-born Australian, Vivian Alvarez Solon, had been mistakenly deported to Manila four years ago and was only found this month languishing in a hospice.

Then authorities freed a three-year-old girl who had spent her entire life in a detention camp after her Malaysian mother was locked up for allegedly trying to use a false passport while she was pregnant.

Australia's longest serving immigration detainee, Peter Qasim, was earlier this month transferred to a psychiatric hospital after seven years in detention so he can be treated for acute depression.

Qasim arrived in Australia from the disputed territory of Indian-administered Kashmir in 1998 and lodged an asylum claim arguing his Muslim faith put his life at risk.

Since then he has been asked to be returned to India but authorities in New Delhi have refused to accept him and he had remained incarcerated in the remote Baxter immigration camp in South Australia.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has also revealed that more than 200 people have been mistakenly detained as illegal aliens.

But the government says the policy is popular with the general public and has succeeded in stopping people smugglers from accepting money from the highest bidder to transport would-be refugees to Australia on often dangerously overloaded boats.
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