Monday 10th March 1997
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Issues - The banking system under the spotlight. They arrive on tourist visas and can get free health care, employment rights and financial help. They can spend up to four years in taxpayer funded appeals and go home at the end with enough cash to set themselves up for life.
A total of Au$60 million a year is now spent processing onshore refugee claims which are increasing at an alarming rate.
The number of litigants from China alone has risen from 21 in 1993 to 88 last year.
Immigration minister Philip Rudddock used the example of the 38 Chinese who illegally landed on Australian shores near Darwin in 1991 and then wandered lost in the desert in the Kimberleys before being tracked down at great cost.
Over Au$1.6 million had been spent on food, shelter and legal bills for the illegal immigrants. The Chinese immigrants successfully sued the Government for detention longer than 273 days with legal costs paid by the Australian tax payer of Au$590,000!...
take a moment to think of poor old tax paying Aussie Johnny....
The search to save them cost more, as did the civil damages the group won. This did not include massive costs for state legal aid offices.
The chart below represents the number of cases in which onshore refugees have sued to stay in Australia. Where one litigant sues for a group this figure is only shown as one....
| Country | 1993-94 | 1994-95 | 1995-96 | 1996-97 to date |
| China | 21 | 85 | 88 | 65 |
| Sri Lanka | 8 | 35 | 34 | 29 |
| India | 4 | 9 | 0 | 15 |
| Vietnam | 3 | 17 | 17 | 0 |
| Burma | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Philippines | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Turkey | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ghana | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Fiji | 0 | 0 | 20 | 0 |
| East Timor | 0 | 0 | 0 | 24 |
| Lebanon | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 |
On the issue of funding for legal costs, we now learn that the Commonwealth government is to provide Aboriginal groups with Au$700,000 to sue the Queensland Government for more than Au$400 million on claims against the Aboriginal Welfare Fund....
Seems like the "bottomless pit" of white Australian taxes is once again going to be used in a highly dubious fashion.
The funding was approved by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) with ATSIC commissioner "Sugar" Ray Robinson saying that the secretariat would spend about six months finalising research on the claim before issuing writs in the Queensland Supreme Court.
Robinson said, "It will probably end up in the High Court.
"We have been told there is Au$6.4 million in the welfare fund, but that's peanuts compared to what is owed to the Aboriginal community. Queensland legislation establishing the welfare fund was illegal and Acts of Parliament dating back to 1832 virtually enslaved Aboriginal people.
"We found that a couple of hospitals were built from the welfare fund (the Townsville and Redcliffe Hospitals)," Mr Robinson said.
"These funds were supposed to be held in trust for Aboriginal people and it was fraudulent to take it out without reimbursing it."
From now on ministers will have to order drivers and cars from a communal pool just like other MPs.
The Government's Comcar service has become like a large bottomless pit sucking in tax payers money - last month it required another Au$6.3 million on top of its Au$3 million allocation to stop it from going into the red.
There is the example of one driver on a base salary of Au$28,000 earning a further Au$43,000 in overtime payments.
David Jull, the Administrative Services Minister, said, "The fact that they're not on call from six in the morning to midnight has made a hell of a difference.
"There has also been a lot of contracting out to private car hire firms in the capital cities and that has saved up to half the price on using Comcars."
Extensive political commentary and links can be found on Palmer's Australian Politics page.
The strike by the public transport workers backfired - although it is believed to have cost the Victorian state about Au$20 million in lost revenues.
Transport union chief Lou di Gregorio said the strike had been a major tactical blunder with state premier Jeff Kennett unlikely to give any ground on workers pay demands - and the likelihood that the service would now be privatised.
One to be enjoyed in the global office... have a great day!
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