Ombudsman fears asylum seeker limbo

SYDNEY (AAP) - May 24 - The commonwealth watchdog is struggling to cope with the large number of asylum seeker cases it has to review.
Commonwealth Ombudsman Allan Asher told a Senate estimates committee he does not want to see asylum seeker "limbo" due to a lack of resources to investigate individual cases.
He raised the 2004-05 case of Australian resident Cornelia Rau who was wrongly held in mandatory detention for ten months.
"We don't want to see the department slip back to those bad old days," Mr Asher told the committee on Tuesday.
The number of cases the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman has been required to look at has jumped from hundreds to thousands over the past two years, Mr Asher said.
And other work by the office has been "trimmed down" to help meet the rising costs.
"We're really struggling to find a way of meaningfully interviewing that many people," Mr Asher said, suggesting future reviews may need to be undertaken in "batches".
"All of the detainees from a particular boat (reviewed together)."
Mr Asher was also asked about the investigation into the destructive Christmas Island riots in March, namely if excessive force was use to quell asylum seekers.
He is confident the company appointed to manage detention centres, Serco, will cooperate with the investigation ordered by the federal government.
But noted that his office had warned the immigration department in September of the "deteriorating situation" at the overcrowded Christmas Island facility.
The Christmas Island riots were followed by a similar incident at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney in April.
Government frontbencher and former immigration minister Chris Evans told the hearing that the increased number of asylum seekers "has put enormous pressure on the system".
"There's no getting away from that," he conceded.