Costs of onshore facilities explode

THE cost of maintaining Australia's expanding network of onshore detention facilities has exploded under the Labor government.

Cost of housing asylum-seekers

THE cost of maintaining Australia's expanding network of onshore detention facilities has exploded under the Labor government, with the Immigration Department signing contracts to cover multi-million-dollar hotel bills and regularly hiring charter planes that cost taxpayers more than $50,000 a day.

The department has pledged to pay more than $18 million over the course of just over a year to house asylum-seekers in a makeshift hotel near Darwin airport, where currently more than 400 people languish in shipping container accommodation hastily constructed by a local developer.

And in central Darwin, the Asti Motel last year signed a $369,000, three-month contract with the department, which hired out the entire motel to house asylum-seekers.

The Australian's analysis of contracts reported by the Immigration Department last year -- published in Department of Finance and Deregulation public records and available on the government's AusTender website -- also reveals the true cost of housing asylum-seekers at the remote former mining town of Leonora in Western Australia.

The company Tecline Pty Ltd has converted a former mining camp and leased it to the Immigration Department at an agreed cost of almost $5m for a year.

About 100 asylum-seekers are also being housed at the Virginia Palms International Hotel in Brisbane.

So-called alternative places of detention such as motels are used by the department when transit accommodation and residential housing facilities for asylum-seekers are at full capacity.

In March 2008, there were 116 people in alternative detention facilities. As of late last week, 1257 people were held in alternative facilities, including motels.

The department's budget for managing Australia's onshore detention network, which includes community facilities, has also increased markedly, rising to $106m in 2009-10.

In 2007-08, it reported $46m of departmental expenses relating to detention.

The federal government has sought to deflect criticism over the ballooning numbers of asylum-seekers being housed in hotels and motels by announcing that greater numbers of children and families would be moved out of immigration detention centres into community-based accommodation.

But the trend coincides with critical overcrowding at the Christmas Island detention centre as the numbers of asylum-seekers arriving by boat continues to rise, including two boats carrying a combined 99 passengers in the past two days.

The overflow from Christmas Island has also created an enormous bill for the government in passenger air services. The department last year reported contracts totalling $18.5m.

Whole planes are regularly hired to transport asylum-seekers around Australia at great taxpayer expense. The department paid an estimated $212,532 to Air Charter Network Pty Ltd in late 2009 for a contract stretching over just three days.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the escalating costs of alternative detention were a contributing factor in an estimated $1.1 billion blowout in the government's immigration budget. "This is the inevitable consequence of a failed border protection policy -- the impact on the budget is significant," Mr Morrison said. "And there is no end in sight."

The Immigration Department defended its spending on motel accommodation for asylum-seekers and its large air transport costs.

A spokesman said the use of motels to house vulnerable clients was in line with Julia Gillard's announcement late last year that greater numbers of vulnerable people would be moved out of detention centres. The policy preceded the government.

"The practice of accommodating vulnerable clients in less restrictive forms of detention such as hotels, motels and serviced apartments is a longstanding one introduced under the previous Coalition government," the spokesman said. "Alternative places of detention are used where they provide the most appropriate accommodation for vulnerable clients."

The department said its contracting of charter planes strictly adhered to commonwealth procurement guidelines.