Hundreds of children will remain in offshore detention centres on Nauru and Christmas Island despite the government announcing a plan to release children in mainland detention into the community.
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More than 1500 children being held in immigration detention on the Australian mainland will be released into the community on bridging visas while their refugee applications are processed, the government said on Tuesday. Of those children, 150 are locked in detention centres on the mainland, while the remainder are in community detention.
But Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the plan would not extend to children being detained offshore because doing so would remove a deterrent to people smugglers.
Children detained before July 19 last year, when the Rudd government announced its plan for offshore resettlement of asylum seekers, will be released into the community.
“We intend to do that over the balance of this year and to do it as quickly as possible,” Mr Morrison told the ABC's AM program on Tuesday.
“We still have some consultations we have to do with service providers because what this announcement does is ensures there's additional support provided to children under the age of 10 who are released with their families on bridging visas.”
But Mr Morrison said children in detention centres on Nauru and Christmas Island would not be eligible because it was those conditions that were stopping more “children coming on the boats”.
He added that the government had to ensure that the “regime which is stopping boats remains in place”.
“It's important that we get those who are in detention on the mainland out of detention,” Mr Morrison said.
“But I certainly don't want children getting on boats and customs officers and navy officers having to go back to the gruesome task of saving children in the water and, in the worst case, getting corpses out of the water.”
At a media conference in Melbourne, Mr Morrison told reporters that the measures would save taxpayers more than $50 million over four years.
He also said legislation to restore temporary protection visas would be introduced into federal parliament once he finished ''discussions'' with crossbenchers, but refused to confirm whether plans for a so-called "national interest test" for every application for permanent protection by those who arrive without a visa would proceed.
Mr Morrison said releasing children on bridging visas into the community was "irresponsible" under the old model, where he said children were sometimes placed in "totally unsuitable accommodation in very distraught circumstances".
He said the new model would ensure children had suitable accommodation, went to school, had access to English-language classes, and improved "casework management".
Children found to be refugees would get a temporary visa, but would not get a permanent visa under current government policy.
Vulnerable children who needed a high level of care and unaccompanied minors might need to be kept in residential detention places in the community, he said.
When asked whether the announcement was designed to improve his image before he fronts the Human Rights Commission, Mr Morrison responded: "That's a pretty cynical question."
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the government's announcement left hundreds of children languishing in the ''hell holes'' of Christmas Island and Nauru.
She said Mr Morrison was refusing to do the right and humane thing and release all children from detention.
''All because the government believes that the harm done to them is worth it for their own policy scoreboard,'' she said.
''How does the minister explain to a 10-year-old that they deserve to be locked up, imprisoned because they arrived in Australia on the wrong day? This announcement from the minister today is incredibly deceptive.
''Rather than treating children properly, accepting that children do not belong in detention, we see the government hardening their stance against those in the most vulnerable situations, facing inhumane conditions on Nauru and Christmas Island.''
Labor shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said the release of children detention was happening under the previous Labor government.
''It is something of a Clayton's announcement. He [Mr Morrison] couldn't make up his mind whether he was against it. He made some criticisms of the policy of releasing children and at other times claimed credit for it and said it was John Howard's policy,'' he told reporters on Tuesday.
''He didn't know what was his position in opposition but in government he could have kept it going. Instead he's kept children in detention for months and now he's claiming some sort of credit for a program which is a continuation of what the Labor government did.''
Social justice law firm Maurice Blackburn said on Tuesday that the government needed to expand its announcement to include all children and babies in detention, including those locked in offshore facilities and babies born in mainland detention after July 19 last year.
''We welcome that the federal government has now recognised that detention is no place for babies and children,'' principal lawyer Jacob Varghese said.
''However, it's disappointing that the announcement explicitly excludes those children who have arrived in Australia after July 19, 2013.''
Mr Varghese said the government had overlooked the fact that children experienced serious trauma in detention irrespective of when they arrived in Australia.
''Currently we represent 94 babies born in detention to post July 19 arrivals,'' he said.
''Today’s announcement does nothing to help these babies – it does nothing to help baby Ferouz and the other babies we act for or their siblings.''
Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs has expressed alarm over soaring rates of self-harm among children in detention since Australia's offshore resettlement policy was introduced.
The Refugee Council of Australia said last month that child asylum seekers were more likely than adults to be locked in a detention facility than in community alternatives.
The council said that of 4331 children in immigration detention, 208 were detained in Nauru and 775 in Australian detention facilities, while the remaining 1507 were in community detention and 1841 were in the community on bridging visas.
The council said last month that since the Abbott government came to power last September, the number of asylum seekers held in offshore facilities had increased by 800, with more than a quarter of those transferred being children.
However, within Australia, the number of asylum seekers moved out of detention and on to bridging visas had increased by 1499.
with Henrietta Cook
