Archival Rescue 29 ~ Aus Detention & Deportation

Dark forces in Alvarez case: Bolkus
May 15, 2005 The Sun-Herald

The woman wrongfully deported from Australia four years ago was reunited with her family in central Manila yesterday.

As Vivian Alvarez Solon was meeting many of her four sisters and three brothers, former Labor immigration minister Nick Bolkus warned of "dark forces" at work among immigration officials that had led to abuses of power in detention centres and Ms Alvarez's deportation.

"It's a department which has a long history, it's a department which also has a dark history, and it's a history which can quite often emerge and dominate their agenda," Senator Bolkus told ABC radio.

"We've got to remember that this is a department that applied the White Australia test, it's a department that even after that test was abolished by the Whitlam government found ways of enforcing discrimination in our migration program," he said.

Senator Bolkus said the Government needed people running the department who had enormous respect for the law.