Mr Burnside’s plan would have people who arrived in Australia without official paperwork detained for one month for health and security checks. “After that I’d release them on interim visas with the right to work, the right to Medicare and Centrelink benefits,” he said. Until their refugee status was determined they would have to live in a specified country town. “The point of it is that if every single one of them stayed on Centrelink benefits for the whole time, it would cost the government about $500million on last year’s arrival figures,” Mr Burnside said. “All of that money would be spent in the country towns.” Mr Burnside said that compared with the $4billion a year now spent on sending asylum seekers to places such as Nauru. “I’d rather save $3.5billion, help the economy of country towns and maybe use a billion dollars of the savings for housing construction projects for homeless Australians.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 03:48:22 +0000
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