Doorstop Interview
Parliament House, Canberra - 1st March 2006
Tony Burke: The Australian National Audit Office have just put out the report into the tendering process that happened for the detention centres. This was a tendering process when the Government changed from ACM, the former company to GSL the new company.
As you go through the figures, and there is a lot of detail in the report, what we have is nothing short of a scandal in the way the Government has handled this. Initially, the company ACM, which held the contracts for the detention centres, was coming a little bit behind when it came to value for money. GSL were then allowed to vary their contract and vary it again and vary it again until they had varied it by $32.5 million dollars. By this stage, ACM, the company that first held the contracts was clearly winning on the value for money stakes. On the value for money index they were offering better value for money and they were offering better quality of service and conditions for detainees within the detention centres. Notwithstanding the fact that they were offering better value for money and that they were offering better conditions, the Government just decided to stop negotiating with them. The Government just decided to stop negotiating with ACM at all and continued to negotiate with GSL.
During this time, the people who were involved in the negotiations of the contract on behalf of the Department became horribly compromised. Minutes were not kept; there are different set of minutes that are conflicting. There are some sets of minutes where the people making the decisions on behalf of the Department for who would run our detention centres in some sets of minutes, they do know which companies have the different tenders, in other sets of minutes they were not told which companies had the different sets of minutes.
A reference was provided for one of the companies tendering by the chair of the Steering Committee who was also the contract administrator. The person in charge of the Steering Committee to decide who would win the tender actually wrote a reference in favour of one of the companies. This person was advised by the Probity Advisor to not do so. But the Probity Advisor also became compromised because the Probity Advisor was willing to take other roles in this contracting process.
Some information about this contracting process and the tendering process will never be known. Records were not kept, records were lost and some of the records we had are conflicting. At the end of the whole process when GSL is successful in winning the contract to run our detention centres, ACM is awarded a payment-a payment which they were not contractually bound to receive, a payment which the National Australian Audit Office can find no reason for them having received at all. But at the end of this, for no reason whatsoever, $5.7 million dollars is given to ACM. $5.7 million dollars for no reason. We want to know who authorised the payment. We want to the reference that was given on ACM on behalf of the contract administrator to be released publicly. We want the information to start to come out that has been hidden and some of which we are just going to have to fumble our way through for the simple reason that the Department, under Philip Ruddock's watch, was managed in such an incompetent fashion that records were not kept.
Journalist: Could this be corruption not just incompetence?
Tony Burke: We don't know the answer to that. You certainly can't rule it out. You certainly can't rule out corruption when you look at the information that appears before us. But $5.7 million dollars given to a company, apparently for no reason and now we see Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon having to go through protracted negotiations for the way they were treated inside the Department of Immigration's regime. Cornelia Rau is struggling to get a compensation payment when the company that has actually been in charge of managing our detention centres receives $5.7 million dollars for apparently no reason at all.
It is no surprise Amanda Vanstone dropped this report at the end of today, by the end of the news cycle.
Journalist: Robert Jovicic will be allowed to return to Australia, does that show the Government does have a heart on immigration matters?
Tony Burke: I'm not going to get stuck into them for bringing Robert Jovicic back. Robert Jovicic coming back is a good move; I'm not going to pretend that everything that they do is always dreadful. I actually hadn't caught up with that news. If it's now been announced that Robert is on the way back, I've never pretended that he is a wonderful member of the community, he hasn't been- but he is unarguably Australia's problem and we should take responsibility in dealing with him.
Journalist: Are you worried about the length of time it has taken?
Tony: It was plain from the time that Lateline broke that story, it was plain from the time that we became aware of Robert Jovicic freezing in a Serbian winter on the steps of our own embassy and clearly with some mental health issues that Robert should have been returned to Australia- not because he is an ideal person to have in Australia but because the problems that are associated with Robert Jovicic are Australia's. He has lived in Australia for 36 of his 38 years. I don't believe he developed his criminal mind by the age of two.
An Australian resident, deported to Serbia in 2004, will return home to Sydney this week. The Immigration Department says Robert Jovicic  will be given a special purpose visa and his status as a permanent resident will be reinstated.

He became a nationless man, impoverished, battling mental health problems and sleeping on the streets of Belgrade. Mr Jovicic, 39, was born in France and arrived in Australia as a two-year-old with his Serbian-born parents. Like nearly one million Australian residents eligible for Australian citizenship, Jovicic never officially became an Australian citizen. 

Ex-Federal Immigration Minister, and now Attorney General, Philip Ruddock ordered Jovicic's deportation on character grounds in June 2004 - after he was jailed for committing crimes in support of a heroin addiction. Mr Jovicic says he had since kicked his drug habit.

The current Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said it was a "very hard decision" to allow Mr. Jovicic to return to Australia. "the community expected to be protected from non-citizens who break the law. On balance, after some anguished consideration, I decided to allow him to return," the Minister said. She said Mr Jovicic was not stateless, he had just refused to apply for Serbian citizenship.

His family say Serbia revoked his citizenship after discovering "the paperwork used by Australian authorities to deport him was invalid". They claim he has since been unable to work, access doctors, welfare or even book a hotel. His family also claims that he does not speak Serbian, and has not been permitted to work because of this. He says he is grateful his ordeal is nearing an end. 

Robert Jovicic's sister says people have no reason to fear her brother's return to Australia. "People need to be reminded that he's not a drug addict any more. He stopped using a long time ago," Susanna Jovicic said. "If people fear that he's going to re-offend, I think that he's more chance of winning lotto," she said. "All he wants is his life back. I think that's the most paramount thing that people need to understand. Once he'd done his time, I know that in jail he stopped (using heroin). He came out, he started a new life." 

Ms Jovicic said the family is yet to pursue compensation. "I can tell you right now, we have not had a conversation about compensation..." she said. "We just want him home." She says the first priority will be to seek medical treatment. Her brother's health problems include scoliosis, an enlarged prostate, mental illness, sand in his kidneys and the need of a catheter to urinate. 

She said Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone's decision to allow his return "validates our belief that Robert was wrongly deported," she said. "I think anybody who has been deported has the legal right to return. The family will be there at the airport waiting for him and it will be quite emotional."

Minister Vanstone said in a November 2005 media release: "Mr Jovicic is not an Australian citizen:
Mr Jovicic, a convicted criminal, had his Permanent Visa cancelled in October 2002 under Section 501 of the Migration Act by the former Minister for Immigration, Philip Ruddock... As an adult between 1984 and 2002, Mr Jovicic was convicted on charges of burglary, theft, possessing stolen property and possessing prohibited substances. In 1998 Mr Jovicic applied for Australian citizenship but was refused on the grounds that he was not of good character."

Commonwealth Ombudsman John McMillan found Senator Vanstone's department had unfairly deported people with criminal records who had lived in Australia since they were children. However, Vanstone said she supports the changes to the Migration Act which allow the Immigration Minister to "deport non citizens who break the law on character grounds and make the decision unappealable."