31 December 2002

CANBERRA: Trouble spread to a second Australian detention centre for immigrants yesterday with firefighters called to tackle an overnight blaze at one camp as police investigated a series of weekend blazes at another.

Immigration department officials said a deliberately lit fire had forced evacuation of a residential block at the Port Hedland detention centre in Western Australia early on Monday. No one was injured but some staff were treated for smoke inhalation.

The blaze came less than 24 hours after five fires at the newly built Baxter detention centre in South Australia destroyed more than 60 of 79 accommodation units. The damage bill was expected to rise to over $A2.3 million ($NZ2.5m).

The nation's seven detention centres house anyone who arrives in the country illegally or overstays their visa while their asylum claims are assessed. This can take years.

Prime Minister John Howard condemned the latest violence but said that it would not sway his conservative government.

Howard said there had been unrest in the detention centres before, and on a far greater scale. The remote Woomera camp in the South Australian desert was rocked by hunger strikes, riots, escapes and suicide bids earlier this year in protests at conditions there and the length of detention periods.

"We are not going to change our policy because people set fire to detention centres," Howard told Australian television.

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2002

Answers

He said anyone found lighting fires would face the full force of the law and then be deported.

Attorney-General Daryl Williams said those believed responsible for lighting the latest fires had all had their applications to stay in Australia rejected at some stage and were due to be deported anyway.

Australia's policy of mandatory detention of illegal arrivals, adopted in 1994, has been widely criticised internationally by human rights and religious groups.

Over the past two years there has been a series of riots, escapes and violence at the centres, which are surrounded by razor wire.

But the policy has strong public support in Australia, as does the Howard government's controversial hard line, adopted last year, to divert mainly Afghan and Middle Eastern boat people to nearby Pacific nations.

For the government, the so-called 'Pacific Solution' has been a big success, with no boats arriving for more than a year, but it is still being plagued by protests

Canberra Refugee Action Committee spokesman Phil Griffiths said the fires were inevitable, given the length of time asylum seekers were held in detention while their claims were processed.

"I would be more surprised and concerned if detainees did not respond to such a situation," Griffiths told reporters.

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2002