The release of an asylum seeker family from detention after being deemed a security risk for three years proves authorities have been getting it wrong, refugee advocates say.
The Rahavan family enjoyed their first full day of freedom on Thursday after the government signed off on their release from Sydney's Villawood detention centre.
The refugee family of five had fled Sri Lanka but were give a negative security watchdog assessment and held indefinitely with no visa or right to appeal.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) decision was only overturned this week after a government-ordered independent review examined their case.
Pamela Curr of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre says it's one of the first negative ASIO assessments to be overturned and it proves the system had been flawed for years.
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"There are all sorts of reasons why people are being caught in this net and until now there has been no possibility of reviewing why they are in the net," she said. "You can't have a bureaucracy making a decision that is non-reviewable. Everybody gets it wrong sometimes."
The family were among more than 50 asylum seekers being held indefinitely due to negative ASIO assessments - cases that are only now being reviewed by former federal court justice Margaret Stone.
Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor said he signed off on releasing the Rahavan family and granting them visas because ASIO rescinded its negative assessment after accepting a recommendation from the judge.
"They will remain in the community on bridging visas," Mr O'Connor's spokesman said.
The reasons for ASIO's negative assessment of the Rahavan family and its sudden reversal three years later have not been released.
But Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young, who met the family in detention several times, noted how the mother had been a legal aid lawyer under the Tamil-led government.
"What this shows is that ASIO doesn't always get it right," she said. "Their nightmare has ended."
The Greens are pushing for new laws that will force ASIO to conduct periodic reviews of security assessments to prevent more asylum seekers being held indefinitely.
