151 is the figure that matters in Budget Week

When the Human Rights Commission announced an inquiry into 
whether children should be kept in immigration detention centres 
in November 2001, no-one thought that it would take two and a 
half years to make its report. Nor did they realise that 70 of 
the children who were in detention on Nauru at the time would 
still be there today.

According to Howard Glenn, National Director of human rights 
organisation A Just Australia, there are presently 151 children 
in immigration detention centres.

One day this week, or at least in the next 15 Parliamentary 
Sitting Days, Attorney General Philip Ruddock is expected to 
release and bury the report midst budget debate.

The report looks into the treatment of children and the legality 
and rationale for putting hundreds of children through what child 
psychiatrists have described as institutional abuse.

"Unfortunately Philip Ruddock has a lot of form in dismissing 
reports, as he has done with the numerous condemnations of the 
child detention system from churches, doctors, judges, the UN and 
a host of international bodies, said Mr Glenn.

"We are all used to hearing excuses like: 'it was long ago, it's 
out of date, there's errors in the report, who really wrote the 
report, it's an exaggeration — who are these people anyway, it's 
not our fault'."

"Well there are more than 151 children in immigration detention 
this week Apart from those on Nauru, 27 are detained in Port 
Augusta, 36 in Villawood, 16 on Christmas Island and 2 in 
Melbourne.

"The media still can't visit them, and for many of them, neither 
can their lawyers.

"In the swill of figures coming out this week, I hope that people 
reflect on the moral deficit that this number 151 represents to 
Australia", Mr Glenn said.