WHILE IMMIGRATION and refugees haven't been front page news, a recent visit by Minister Kevin Andrews to Indonesia effectively spread the failed "Pacific Solution" to Southeast Asia, and cemented "border protection" as a central pillar of the Liberal government's xenophobic agenda.Accordingly, the federal budget allocated millions for a joint Australian-Indonesian taskforce of immigration and police agencies, and an extra $7 million for the International Organisation of Migration in Indonesia.

Unfortunately, while the recent ALP national conference made some progressive changes to aspects of its refugee policy, Rudd Labor is no more capable of politically standing up to the chauvinism around "illegals" and "people smugglers" than was Beazley in 2001.

Rudd's response in late February to the boatload of 83 Sri Lankan asylum seekers was to state that, "If people are interdicted on the high seas, then these vessels should be turned around."

The only exception would be boats carrying West Papuans or others fleeing persecution at the hands of Indonesia, and they'd be banished to Christmas Island.

So while the refugee movement can take credit for the ALP National Conference dumping its support for Temporary Protection Visas and the Pacific Solution, including the Nauru detention centre, there was no change to Labor's support for mandatory detention.

An amendment from Victorian Labor for Refugees to reverse the excision of Christmas Island, Ashmore Reef and the Cocos Islands got no support, as the Labor leadership defended the "Indian Ocean Solution", centred on the mammoth new detention centre on Christmas Island.

This maximum security monstrosity is due to be completed by August. It has been compared to Guantanamo and Alcatraz, and is surrounded by cliffs in an isolated area of national park near the western tip of the island.

It can hold up to 800 detainees, and the cost, initially $230 million, has blown out to $500 million and counting.

The camp is surrounded by an "energised" electric fence and equipped with hypersensitive microwave motion detectors and electronically controlled doors to allow centre-wide lock-downs. There will be cameras in all bedrooms.

The rooves are steep to prevent the kind of rooftop protests that have occurred in other detention centres, while all furniture is bolted to the floor.

The plans also include a nursery and classrooms, despite Howard promising his dissident backbenchers in 2005 that the detention of children would be a "last resort". There is also a maximum security red compound, not unlike the one Cornelia Rau was held in at Baxter.

The current detention facility on Xmas Island was hurriedly opened in September 2001, after the Tampa crisis and the excision of islands to the north of Australia. It can hold 104, but according to the department's website, as at 20 April, there were just two male detainees there. Their only contact with legal representatives has been over the phone.

Anna Samson, who recently visited the island, told a recent Refugee Action Coalition forum that the majority of Christmas Island's 1200 residents are opposed to their island becoming a permanent refugee prison, and would prefer to encourage tourism.

The lack of boats trying to reach the Australian mainland has fuelled speculation that the camp may be used for even more sinister purposes, for example that detainees currently in mainland centres may be sent there, or even that the US may use it to lock up suspects in its "war on terror".

Such scenarios are unlikely, although we've also recently seen the outlandish Australia-US deal to trade Sri Lankan and Burmese refugees on Nauru for Cubans and Haitians in Guantanamo, an arrangement aimed at preventing detainees on Nauru from coming to Australia (as many Tampa refugees eventually did) once the vast majority of them are granted visas.

The bipartisan support for fortress Australia, symbolised by the Xmas Island gulag, graphically illustrates why the refugee movement will need to continue campaigning beyond the federal election.

By Mark Goudkamp

A petition initiated by the Refugee Action Collective in Victoria can be downloaded at www.rac-vic.org. Mail before 31 May to: RAC-Vic, PO Box 578, Carlton South 3053

Two Chinese asylum seekers in Villawood detention centre remain on a hunger strike, which began on March 28 after a young woman was forcibly deported without notice. They are in an extremely weak state. From Wednesday 16 May, RAC plans to hold daily vigils outside the Department of Immmigration Offices at Railway Square in Sydney. Call 0417275713 or 0409777173 for more details