Archival Rescue 30 ~ Immigration

Deport Amanda Vanstone - send her back to SA.

Labor calls on Vanstone to resign
May 15, 2005 - 12:39pm AAP Sydney Morning Herald

The Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, has called on the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, and the head of the Immigration Department to resign over their mishandling of the Vivian Alvarez case.

Ms Alvarez, an Australian citizen, was wrongly deported to the Philippines four years ago but was found last week in a hospice north of Manila by an Australian priest.

Mr Beazley today repeated calls for a royal commission into the case and said heads must roll over the affair.

"Frankly, if he's [Prime Minister John Howard] not going to go down the road of a royal commission to get to the bottom of it, he should go down the road of resignations," he told the Nine Network.

"This is not competent, we are having our affairs, our immigration affairs, handled incompetently.

"If John Howard doesn't want a proper inquiry and simply go on the information that is publicly available, the information that is publicly available now is resignation information - resignation of the minister, resignation of the head of the department."

Ms Alvarez's case follows that of Cornelia Rau, an Australian resident who was mistakenly held in detention for 10 months, including an extended period at the Baxter detention centre in South Australia.

The Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, has referred Ms Alvarez's case to a closed-door government inquiry into the Rau case.