TRAVEL

AIRFARE BILL TOPS $20 MILLION

TAXPAYERS spent more than $20 million on airfares for 5000 people who broke Australia's immigration rules and were kicked out last year.

Tourists who overstayed their visas, people who breached working conditions of their visas and students who failed their courses were among those deported at Australia's expense.

Almost 1600 tourists who had overstayed were locked up in detention centres before being deported.

Department of Immigration and Citizenship figures show 5056 people had their airfares paid for, and where required had escorts, at an average cost of $4081 each.

Airfares were only a portion of the detention and removal costs billed to deportees and only a fraction of the total cost is recovered by the department each year.

"In 2006-07, DIAC recovered $902,159 from people who had previously been removed from Australia," a department spokesman said.

During the year, 9489 people were removed or had their departure monitored.

But the department said this was a small figure given that four million visas were issued each year for Australia.

Just over 2 per cent of temporary entrants break the law.

"The number of tourists who become overstayers each year is only part of the 2.2 per cent of the people who do not fully comply with immigration (laws)," the spokesman said.

DIAC pointed out that the $20 million cost of airfares was negligible compared to Tourism Australia's forecast that inbound tourism would bring about $22 billion to the country.

Source: Herald Sun