Cost of maintaining Australia's detention centres revealed

The Australian Immigration Department has signed multi-million dollar contracts to cover hotel bills and hired charters, costing $50, 000 daily, according to The Australian’s analysis of contracts reported by the Department last year.

The Department said its contracting of charter planes strictly adhered to the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines.

The Department of Finance and Deregulation public records are available on the government’s AusTender website.

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 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.

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. And there is no end in sight," Mr Morrison said

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.

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