The cost of stopping the boats has been calculated at more than $9.6 billion since 2013, and will be another $5.7 billion over the next four years, according to a study by Save the Children and UNICEF.
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The study estimates the cost of keeping around 2000 asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island and Nauru at $400,000 per person, compared with just $33,000 for those on bridging visas in the Australian community.
It asserts the policy is inflicting incalculable harm on asylum seekers, especially children; straining bilateral relationships; and damaging Australia's bid for a seat on the United Nation's Human Rights Council.
It calls on the Turnbull Government to commit to a timeline for resettling those on Nauru and Manus Island, legislate against the detention of children and revoke the ban on resettling refugees who arrived in Indonesia after July 1 2014.
Pressing the case for a regional protection framework, it also recommends an increase in Australia's refugee intake and the phasing out of turning back boats to Indonesia, which is says exposes asylum seekers to potential danger at sea and further harm.
With a report to be launched by the Human Rights Commission on Wednesday, the study increases the pressure on Malcolm Turnbull to end the ordeal of those in limbo. Mr Turnbull will fly to New York next week to attend a summit called by President Obama on refugees.
"The Prime Minister should use this moment to redirect Australia's approach to refugees and asylum seekers and embrace greater regional cooperation and provide protection for some of the world's most vulnerable children," says Save the Children Australia chief executive, Paul Ronalds.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has ruled out any softening of Australia's policy, telling Parliament on Monday: "We will not deviate because the people smugglers are still there in Indonesia, and in Sri Lanka and Vietnam and elsewhere trying to put syndicates together to put people on to boats."
Called At What Cost?, the 80-page report represents the most comprehensive attempt to reveal the cost of Australia's hardline policy on boat arrivals, drawing on publicly-available data on the costs of maintaining offshore and onshore detention centres, boat turn-backs and the failed Cambodian resettlement agreement.
Report authors Lisa Button and Shane Evans concede the lack of transparency in reporting and aggregated budget allocations make it difficult to accurately cost Australia's asylum seeker framework, but assert the "true economic cost" is likely to be much greater than the $9.6 billion.
They say their estimate excludes the costs of inquiries by the Parliament and the Human Rights Commission into Australia's detention system, of defending numerous legal challenges in the courts and of paying compensation to those who have suffered damage.
"The Turnbull Government has endlessly trumpeted its immigration policies, but at the same time sought to hide their true costs through secrecy laws which criminalise whistleblowers who disclose human rights violations, protocols of operational secrecy and a refusal to establish adequate independent monitoring mechanisms," says Mr Ronalds.
The report concludes that, if Australia's approach was adopted on a global scale, it "would certainly mean the end of the notion of refugee protection".
"Our policies attempt to coerce those fleeing persecution to stay where they are, to wait indefinitely and to endure countless dangers, indignities and lives lived in limbo," the report concludes.
"What's more, Australia's current deterrence policies set a dangerous precedent which, if replicated elsewhere, will increasingly result in tides of men, women and children pushed up against closed borders.
"If faith in our global refugee system is completely destroyed, the result will be a future in which people simply do not flee persecution at all and remain where they are to suffer whatever fate may befall them in countries not willing or able to protect them."
