Wrongful Australian detention report leaked

CANBERRA - Christine Rau today demanded to see a full copy of the report into her sister's wrongful detention after scathing extracts were published today.

In leaked extracts published in The Australian, inquiry head and former federal police commissioner Mick Palmer said Cornelia Rau spent five weeks in Baxter detention centre before being assessed by a psychiatrist even though she arrived there in a distressed and confused state.

He found the Australian woman fell victim to poor mental health provisions at the South Australian immigration detention centre -- a facility he described as "manifestly inadequate".

She was also refused admission to a mental institution because the hospital had a policy of admitting only one Baxter detainee at a time, it was reported.

Christine Rau today said she should not have to rely on leaked extracts appearing in the media.

"We've always argued that we're not just an outside party, we're also the family of the victim, and we've been investigating this quite thoroughly ourselves and have promised confidentiality," she said.

"Hopefully we can have it released properly through government channels, rather than dribs and drabs of leaks here and there.

"It would be a lot better for everyone concerned if we were able to see the whole thing when it's finally completed, I think."

She said Mr Palmer's initial findings were consistent with her family's views on the problems that contributed to Cornelia being wrongly detained for 10 months as an illegal immigrant - four of those at Baxter.

She gave cautious support for Mr Palmer's initial recommendations, including that the Immigration Department establish a city-based mental health unit to treat detainees held around Australia.

"I'm a bit cautious in a few ways," she told ABC radio.

"Because I think that the recommendations he's making here are only a small part of the recommendations he will be making in the final report, but they do overlap with what we know and with what we have also recommended in our submission.

"We've spoken to psychiatrists who've said that even if you had top-notch psychiatric facilities within detention centres it would be a bit like trying to treat sunburn in the sun, because the system itself leads to mental illness.

"Our contention has been that the problems are inherent also in the structure of DIMIA (the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs) and the way they conduct their detention system full stop."

Christine Rau said she was not surprised that her sister was refused a place at Glenside, South Australia's only dedicated mental health facility, because of its policy to admit only one Baxter detainee at a time.

"I know they're in a very awkward position now," she said.

"The South Australian health authorities have now called for, similar to what Mr Palmer is calling for, a separate health facility for detainees because Glenside, the hospital in Adelaide, is being swamped at the moment by detainees.

"Not only by detainees, but by the guards who have to guard them."

Federal Labour today said it had been fighting for three years to achieve major changes in the way detainees with mental illnesses are handled.

"The government's ignored that and claimed that everything was okay. What we find out today is that it clearly isn't okay," Labor's new immigration spokesman Tony Burke told ABC radio.

"You shouldn't have a situation where somebody who has all the signs of needing treatment doesn't get treatment until five weeks later."

Immigration detention centres run by private companies should be handed back to government control, Mr Burke said.

He also labelled the Palmer inquiry inadequate and said the immigration detention system must be investigated through a royal commission.

"We need a royal commission. Unless you have the full powers, investigatory powers of a royal commission, you're not going to be able to get to the bottom of the problems that now lie at the heart of the department of immigration," he said.

Australian Democrats deputy leader Andrew Bartlett said the immigration detention system must go.

"It isn't just a matter of one or two isolated cases or a necessary component of border protection and (the Rau case) had nothing to do with asylum seekers or anything else," he said.

"It just had to do with the inevitable result of a department that has literally total power.

"I think the whole immigration detention regime needs to be abolished and start again from scratch."

- AAP