Fed: Asylum seekers costing three times more to process offshore
CANBERRA, April 17 AAP - Asylum seekers cost about three times more to process underthe Pacific solution than those processed on the Australian mainland, the Senate inquiryinto the children overboard affair has revealed.
Australia is spending $114 million on housing and processing detainees under the Pacificsolution - $72 million for Nauru and $42 million for Manus Island - this financial year.
This meant taxpayers were paying around $413 a day for every asylum seeker detainedon Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and $218 a day for those on Nauru.
That compares with an average $116 for a detainee held in one of six Australian mainland centres.
But the cost of detaining people on Nauru and Manus Island included the cost of establishingthe detention centres while such expenses were absent from figures relating to onshorecentres.
On top of the $114 million for processing asylum seekers, Australia gave Nauru a sweetenerof $20 million worth of assistance and put $1 million into a trust account for PNG's agreement.
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's spokesman said the $114 million was based onmore asylum seekers going to Nauru and PNG and if numbers remained low, as they had inrecent months, it was possible money could be returned to government coffers.
Immigration Department official in charge of the offshore centres Vince McMahon toldthe inquiry most of the $114 million went to the International Organisation for Migration(IOM) to assess asylum seekers' refugee status.
"But it also includes our own cost and the cost of some other agencies which are ineffect contracted to us," Mr McMahon said.
"For example, APS (Australian Protective Service) provides guarding services, particularlyon Nauru, and they charge us for those sorts of costs.
"But the bulk of it actually goes towards IOM."
AAP sm/cjh/sb
KEYWORD: DETENTION DAYLEAD
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