Senior Migration Agent alarmed about Seventh Christmas in Detention

Project SafeCom Inc.
P.O. Box 364
Narrogin
Western Australia 6312
Phone: 0417 090 130
Web: https://www.safecom.org.au/

Senior Migration Agent alarmed about Seventh Christmas in Detention

Media Release
Friday December 22 2006, 1:00pm WST
For Immediate Release
No Embargoes

"The office of migration agent since more than 25 years Marion Lê and Associates in Canberra this morning expressed its alarm about the Department of Immigration's shocking inaction about the case of "Mr Lo", a Chinese national who currently spends his seventh Christmas in an Australian detention centre," WA Rights group Project SafeCom said this morning.

"Ms Lê's associate Claire Bruhns alerted me this morning (FULL transcript below) and sent us a personally endorsed statement from Mr Le, who SINCE 1992 has asked for a comprehensive ruling by the Department, but who's instead left hung out to dry with hap-hazard solutions of Bridging Visas, detention, releases from detention, and re-detention since he first arrived aboard the 'Labrador'," spokesman Jack H Smit said.

"The Department of Immigration is still a Department stacked by way too many cowboys who behave with abject disrespect for the lives and well-being of who they call their clients since the Palmer report, regardless of the socalled 'clean-up' last year," Mr Smit said.

"Let's start with a clean slate and do some "bloody mass-sackings" within this shocking Department, before the Australian electorate commits itself to the Greatest Sacking of All at the next federal election."

For more information:

Jack H Smit
Project SafeCom Inc.
[phone number posted]

Claire Bruhns
Marion Lê and Associates
Canberra
[phone number posted]

Introduction

Mr Lo, who is a Chinese national, arrived in Australia in 1992 on the boat "Labrador".

He was released from detention by DIMA on a Bridging Visa in January 1995 but was re-detained in February 2003 and has remained in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre since then.

He has committed no crime.

He is a committed Christian - but this will be his 7th Christmas in detention in Australia.

I am appalled.

A recent application for a Bridging Visa has not even been processed.

Email on behalf of Mr Lo:

Today is the last working day before Christmas.

Today is the last day before Christmas that you can (all) make Mr Lo, "the person," your business.

Today is the last day you have the opportunity to do the decent thing for a person who has suffered from the gross incompetence of the Department over a long period of time.

There are only two long-term options for Mr Lo:

The Minister allows him a PR Visa to remain in Australia or The Department succeed in deporting him to China.

In the short-term - why did you all decide not to release Mr Lo before Xmas?

Is it because you fear Mr Lo, in his currently depressed and diminished state, has the capacity to become invisible in Australia, to disappear into some commercial kitchen and earn his living again, cooking food for Australians, and that you wouldn't have the capacity to locate him when you wanted to "remove him"?

Or is it that, having had your past mistakes highlighted for you - you are unable to employ any flexibility, any humanity, any decency - for fear of having your mistakes aired publicly, forcing you to have to admit those mistakes, or are you frightened of simply repeating those mistakes?

Is it fear, is it pervasive incompetence or is it an innate maliciousness that is causing the depths of meaning behind "people our business' to once again slip through all your fingers, like dust?

It seems the drought is not only present in the regions, but that the very heart of the Department is as barren as a drought - that the hearts of you all, those Australians who chose to carry out policies that are essentially inhumane, are rigidly returning to type, despite the exposure that lead to the Palmer and other reports.

And don't blame the Minister - the files reveal how much mis-information has been fed to Minister after Minister about Mr Lo, and as recently as September, you were still telling her he had been unlawful for 8 years instead of telling her the truth about sustained incompetence on your own parts.

Where is the "frank and fearless" (not advice - but admissions) - where is the honest assessment - that Departmental officers stuffed up back in January 95 and have kept stuffing up ever since.

The files reveal a bunch of incompetent people chasing their tails, jumping at shadows and floundering from one possible positive construction to the next - with the odd humanitarian sentiment shining through (mainly amongst the people on the ground, at the interface with Mr Lo in the detention setting.)

The files contain enough material for a great screenplay and if weren't so tragic, it would be a comedy of errors.

Marion said yesterday that she doubted you would all be "choking on your Xmas dinner" but you should be!

I believe you are mostly so disassociated from your core responsibilities to the PEOPLE who are meant to be your business - that you won't spare a thought for Mr Lo as you sit down to enjoy your day.

But I hope that the rich food of freedom tastes like ashes in your mouth.

And I hope, as you all look around at your families - who smile a welcome and urge you to "relax and enjoy your well-earned break" that you find that relaxation evades you because your bureaucratic impotence has so defined you, that you have left the most essential aspect of your job undone ... unfinished.

I do not believe you are deserving of a Xmas that is not haunted by the suffering of Mr Lo and the thousands of others, who since 1992, have been subjected to the myriad flaws in processing that blot many of the files maintained by your Department.

And don't blame the Minister - she merely skims the surface of a toxic brew constructed person by person to accommodate policies that diminish us all.

You chose what ingredients the Minister sees - you construct her view every step of the way.

If the Minister decides to "do the decent thing" for Mr Lo - it will be years too late but the timing has been largely your doing, not hers.

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