The federal opposition has called on the government to suspend its asylum-seeker community release program after a would-be refugee was charged with sexual assault at a Sydney university.
A Sri Lankan asylum seeker appeared in a Sydney court on Wednesday after being charged with the indecent assault of a 20-year-old student at Macquarie University on February 14.
Daxchan Selvarajah, 21, is on a bridging visa but is not among a group of asylum seekers who are staying in accommodation on the university's northwest Sydney campus.
Coalition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says the Gillard government should stop granting bridging visas to asylum seekers, except in exceptional circumstances, until it reviews its community release program.
He says there are 10,000 asylum seekers on bridging visas in the community.
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"It's important that the government find out where these people are," Mr Morrison told reporters in Melbourne.
"A no-care, no-responsibility approach is not good enough."
Mr Morrison said police should be told when asylum seekers are released into communities. "It is important there be mandatory behaviour protocols put in place for people released into the community," he added.
But a spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor dismissed Mr Morrison's comments as negative and a knee-jerk reaction.
"The opposition is cynically exploiting an incident which is before the courts to cause fear and unrest in the community," the spokeswoman said in a statement.
She pointed out asylum seekers are subjected to a security assessment before being released from detention.
"The opposition must now explain how they would pay for their new policy of scrapping bridging visas and keeping people in detention - which is much more expensive than letting them live in the community," she said.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said anybody, irrespective of their immigration status, who engaged in an act of violence would feel the full force of the law.
"Of course, if you commit an offence it can affect your immigration status if you're here in our nation," Ms Gillard told reporters in Brisbane.
Australian Greens' immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the matter should be left for the courts to deal with.
