Background
The Migration Act 1958 allowed discretionary detention of unauthorised arrivals until 1992. Since the 1990s when the ALP government of Paul Keating enforced a policy of mandatory detention of unauthorised arrivals, non-citizens arriving by boat without a valid visa were detained until they were either granted a visa, or deported.
Towards the end of the 1990s, a large increase in the number of unauthorised arrivals exceeded the capacity of the existing Immigration Reception and Processing Centres at Port Hedland and Curtin.
Read more about this topic: Australian Immigration Detention Facilities
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