Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Joint Standing Committee on Migration’s report, Immigration detention in Australia: a new beginning. My interest in this matter concerns the provision of external review of the status of and complaints by detainees, a review by a body other than the immigration department to deal with these issues. On this I have associated myself with remarks made by the member for Kooyong, Mr Georgiou, who proposed that detainees should be able to access external judicial review. As has been said, in the criminal legal system people can only be detained for limited periods of time after a review by a judicial officer. I feel the proposals in this report are a step forward. They retain the policy of mandatory detention of unauthorised arrivals while they are subject to checks of their identity and criminal history and checks as to security issues and health. The proposals retain that system while making the process more equitable and fair.

Question agreed to.