THE detention of asylum seekers is not only “unChristian” but will cost Australia “an enormous amount” in mental health bills, according to Church advocates.
The comments were made in support of a Yarra Institute for Religion and Social Policy report, funded by Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand, estimating the cost of professional support to be $25,000 per asylum seeker.
Long-time advocate for refugees and asylum seekers and former information officer for Brisbane’s Mercy Family Services’ Romero Centre Frederika Steen said this was probably a conservative estimate.
She has met five detainees from Sherger Detention Centre near Weipa in Queensland’s north being treated for various mental illnesses at a private hospital in Toowong.
“I’ve seen first hand how doing the wrong thing is costly in dollars and in lives,” Ms Steen said.
Adelaide Centacare Catholic Family Services director Dale West was reported as saying the process of locking up asylum seekers for unknown periods further traumatised asylum seekers, more than 80 per cent of whom became Australian citizens.
“The (Yarra Institute for Religion and Social Policy) report says mental health treatment costs about 50 per cent more than regular medical treatment,” he said.
The report was issued as the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office (ACMRO) offered condolences to the family of a Sri Lankan refugee who had died in custody on October 26.
It was the seventh asylum-seeker death in detention in Australia in the past year.
The condolences came the day after the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People had launched Pope Benedict’s 2012 message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
ACMRO director Fr Maurizio Pettena said the young man’s death was “another very sad story of immigration detention”.
“Australia still has over 4400 asylum seekers in immigration detention facilities,” he said.
“Over 2000 of these have been deprived of their liberty for more than 12 months, despite the fact they have committed no crime.”
Ms Steen said “when you add in the future compensation claims based on the damage done to non-criminal asylum seekers in the care of the Commonwealth of Australia in immigration detention centres/prisons, the total costs will be enormous”.
“Compensation settlements from the (former Prime Minister John) Howard era are still flowing through.
“Australia does not have to do this – detention is the exception not the rule in civilised countries.
“It is our political system that chooses to do this to innocent people … this must stop.”
Mr West said “once asylum seekers are assimilated into Australian society, their medical costs are paid for by taxpayers”.
“So why would you, at the political end, and for deterrence, cause people those extra health problems when it’s going to cost you to support them and to provide the health support services into the future?”
Mr West said “from a Christian point of view, it’s about how we treat one another”.
“If we were in a circumstance where we were fleeing terror … we wouldn’t hope to be treated by being stuck in a detention centre and left there for four or five years,” he said.
Pope Benedict’s 2012 message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees was launched by the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People.
The 2012 theme is “Migration and the New Evangelisation”.
Council president Archbishop Antonio Maria Veglio in launching the message said “today we find ourselves in front of a social and religious reality characterised by an impressive flow of movements … as an outlet for the search of better living conditions or to escape from the threat of persecution, wars, violence, hunger and natural disasters”.
He noted this was producing “a diverse mixture of peoples and cultures with its own identity and faces”.
“As a result the whole world has become a land for the new evangelisation,” he said.
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has decreed the 2012 event will be celebrated over an entire week culminating with the actual celebration on Sunday, August 26.
Fr Pettena urged all Catholic faithful to pray for those still in detention and for an end to indefinite mandatory detention.
