A BILLION dollar blowout in the detention centre budget was filed the day Kevin Rudd was sworn back in as prime minister.


Almost 1300 people have reached Australia since he seized his old job, taking the Christmas Island population to a record of 3544 people.

The influx comes as the government revealed on a contracts website on June 27 that managing Australia's detention centres will now cost almost $2.5 billion, almost $1 billion more than expected last year.

Contracts with Serco for providing detention services have blown out four times since 2009, with more than 45,000 arrivals since the original contract for $279 million was signed.

The contract with Serco for immigration residential housing has also increased from the $44 million expected in 2009 to almost $200 million as the company caters for more people.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott blamed Mr Rudd for dismantling offshore processing, ending temporary protection visas and stopping boat tow backs after he was elected in 2007.

"Kevin Rudd's disastrous decision to weaken Australia's borders has seen more than 46,000 people arrive illegally by boat and the budget blow out by more than $10 billion," he said.

"But the boats keep coming and this contract shows that the costs keep blowing out."

Immigration Minister Tony Burke said Labor had "made mistakes in 2009 in not acting quickly enough" and the blow out showed the agreement for a regional summit struck by Mr Rudd last week was important.

"If you ever wanted evidence that this is a problem bigger than simple slogans this is it," he said of the blowout.

"That is why we are consulting widely among the Government and working with the Indonesian Government as we have highlighted in recent days."

The Immigration Department said its contracts had to be varied because of the influx of arrivals.

"High numbers of people in immigration detention have an impact on the cost of providing accommodation and support services," a spokeswoman said.

"The Australian government has acknowledged immigration detention is expensive."

The government announced two more boats had arrived yesterday.

Arrivals have also increased this month, with 1034 coming in the first eight days of July, compared with 937 in the first eight days of June.

Almost 170 people on the latest two boats were taken to Christmas Island.

Meanwhile, Mr Burke acknowledged it was unlikely Australian police could charge asylum seekers who threatened self harm to convince a merchant ship's crew to take them to Christmas Island and not Indonesia last week.

Mr Burke was seeking advice on whether he could consider the asylum seekers actions if they submit refugee applications.

What pisses me off is they have no problem putting their hands in the tax payers pockets to pay for these boat people but struggle when it comes to looking out for our own.

cods wrote on Jul 10^th, 2013 at 7:15am:

And the bad part about that is no one in the beurocracy or government is ever held accountable.

It's why I will not be voting for the alp.
It's one of the reasons they dumped rudd

BlOoDy RiPpEr wrote on Jul 10^th, 2013 at 7:10am:



I just received my Group Certificate the other day, and I have paid an exorbitant amount of tax, only to have some of it pissed away on country shoppers.