Asylum riots put heat on Labor

WAYNE Swan refuses to contemplate a shake-up of the immigration detention regime, despite claims the government lacks resolve.

WAYNE Swan refuses to contemplate a shake-up of the immigration detention regime, despite claims the government lacks resolve.

The Acting Prime Minister is under pressure to address the political crisis engulfing its border protection policies in the wake of this week's riots at Sydney's Villawood detention centre.

His firm line came as The Weekend Australian learned that the two detainees - an Iranian and an Iraqi - accused of sparking three days of rioting at the centre in Sydney's west have lodged appeals with the Federal Magistrates Court against the federal government's decision to twice reject their refugee claims.

Government sources said it was unlikely the pair would face deportation.

"It's very, very difficult and it is unlikely they will be deported," a source said last night.

Yesterday, 22 detainees involved in the rioting - during which detainees threw roof tiles at firemen trying to extinguish blazes in four buildings, allegedly set alight by inmates protesting at lengthy waits in having their refugee claims processed - were transferred to Silverwater Correctional Centre in Sydney's west to be questioned as part of separate investigations by the NSW police and Australian Federal Police.

The transfer came as a boat with asylum-seekers, believed to be 70 Sri Lankans, was intercepted in Australian waters near the Cocos Islands.

As more than 100 AFP officers remained at Villawood yesterday to maintain calm, Mr Swan said it was "as it should be" that detainees involved in the uprising were being questioned by police.

"This sort of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable," the Acting Prime Minister said.

Asked whether the government would change its policy, Mr Swan said the reason the detainees had been protesting was that their asylum claims had been rejected.

He said Labor would not be supporting a proposed private member's bill by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young to cap the time spent in detention.

Asked whether the government would take over the running of the immigration detention centres from private company Serco, he said: "It is not a consideration. The fact is we have had unacceptable behaviour from people who have been rejected, have had their claims rejected, and that is why we have seen this behaviour, and now they should feel the full force of the law."

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said Labor's lack of resolve to prosecute those involved in riots was acting as a magnet for people-smugglers and asylum-seekers.

After the December 2009 riot on Christmas Island, 11 boatpeople were charged. Of these, eight had their charges dismissed; three were convicted, two being placed on a good behaviour bond and one fined. The Immigration Department yesterday confirmed all three were granted visas late last year.

Mr Morrison attacked the government's "failure" to toughen its border protection policies.

The current immigration system had been in a "rolling crisis" since 2009, with Labor ignoring all warnings to toughen its policy, he said.

"(Immigration Minister) Chris Bowen and the government have found themselves in a policy cul de sac of their own making with no way out," Mr Morrison said.

"The number of returns has been a trickle and the threat of being sent home if you're not a refugee has been a hollow one . . . They have allowed a culture of entitlement to develop among asylum-seekers and they are now paying the price."

The number of asylum-seekers in immigration detention facilities stood at 6398 last night.

Mr Bowen yesterday refused requests from The Weekend Australian for an interview.

James Jupp, an associate professor at the Australian National University's Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies, said the Immigration Minister could be held in contempt of court and would be breaching Australia's international obligations if he deported the men accused of sparking this week's riots.

"The refugee convention says that even if someone has failed to get residence in Australia, they cannot be sent back to their own country if they are in danger of being further persecuted when they get there," Professor Jupp said.

"We don't have arrangements with either of those countries, and while there have been cases of the Immigration Department sending back people involuntarily, there would be far too much publicity for that to occur in this case."

Four detainees remained on the roof at Villawood yesterday as about 20 refugee supporters held a vigil outside the centre protesting against mandatory detention.

An immigration source told The Weekend Australian the two men accused of initially sparking the riots had launched judicial reviews of their twice-rejected asylum cases in the Federal Magistrates Court, complicating deportation action.

"One is waiting on a decision, the other is at the beginning of the appeal process," the source said.

Amir Morad Masoor, a 22-year-old Iraqi, and Mahdi Darabi, a 24-year-old Iranian, both of Kurdish origin, were first to climb on to the Villawood roof, about 5.30am on Wednesday. The action sparked three days of protests and a riot involving about 100 detainees in which four buildings were set on fire. The pair continued their rooftop vigil last night with two other detainees, and said they would not come down until their demands to talk to Immigration officials were met.

"We will die up here . . . we will never come down unless our problems are fixed," Mr Masoor said.

Asked why they threw roof tiles at firemen trying to put out the blazes on Wednesday night, Mr Darabi said: "We thought they were trying to come up here on the roof and steal our blankets, our water and everything."

The Villawood standoff came as opinion began to shift on detention policies among former opponents of John Howard's offshore detention regime.

Psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed, who opposed the Howard government's policy of offshore detention and processing when it was introduced, now says the Pacific Solution was "more humane" than the current approach to the treatment of asylum-seekers.

"What the government is doing is essentially inviting more people to come to Australia, and then detaining them for lengthy periods," Dr Ahmed said. "That is a greater evil than offshore processing."

He said it was no coincidence that at a time when refugee numbers were declining in other parts of the world, there was a sharp upswing in arrivals in Australia.

Mr Morrison restated the opposition's asylum policy of reopening the Nauru detention centre. He attacked the Greens, and said that despite their public statements, they had no backbone to pressure the government to fix the system. "If they wanted to make this a core issue, they would do to the government what they did over the carbon tax," he said.

Senator Hanson-Young rejected Mr Morrison's claims and said the Greens would continue to pressure the government to act on the asylum-seeker issue. "I'm not going to excuse actions that are violent or result in property damage. However, I will continue to take up the challenge to the government to fix the problem for the long haul," she said.

Additional reporting: Sarah Elks, Paige Taylor