Spacehamster’s Blog

I doubt this decision will be met with universal support - particularly amongst ultra-conservative political elites (as opposed to the ultra-left-wing political elites). Those objectors will be marginally reassured to note that mandatory detention isn’t being completely scrapped, but the onus of proof is being put on the Immigration Department to prove a Security threat.

Andrew Bartlett expresses it far more eloquently than I ever could -

Chris Evans actually makes a point of emphasising that Labor remains committed to mandatory detention, which might seem strange seeing he is emphasising the importance of letting people out as quickly as possible. Partly this is political – the need for Labor to protect itself against claims that it’s gone ‘soft’ on ‘border security’. If the new system is as he states, it will not be fully mandatory, in the sense that there is will be a presumption towards people being released unless it can be demonstrated there is clear risk to the community in doing so. But it is true that people without a valid visa will still be subjected to being detained initially. The key difference will be the removal of the core problem, namely that that detention continued indefinitely, and a new presumption towards people being free unless there is a good reason to do otherwise rather than the previous approach of people being locked up as a matter of first resort.