The AGE argues that the Australian government's decision to make the biggest human rights compensation payment in our history is a concession that the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in mandatory offshore detention is indefensible.
The AGE emphasises that our governments are guilty of demonising people fleeing war and persecution.
The paper has long argued the mandatory offshore detention policies of the Coalition and Labor will come to be seen as one of the most shameful chapters in Australian political history.
It says that it is reasonable for the Coalition to argue that the former Labor administration lost control of our borders, resulting in hundreds of people perishing at sea in shabby boats run by smugglers. However, it is immoral and illogical to treat people so cruelly to create a deterrent.
And it suggests that the money - the annual cost of keeping someone in one of the centres is about half a million dollars - can be used to create orderly processing centres in collaboration with other nations in our region and elsewhere.
The AGE argues that mandatory offshore detention is vile and should be abandoned.
