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Estimates of the cost per day per asylum seeker vary. DIMA estimates $104.00. Accountant Naomi Edwards, in the Sydney Morning Herald estimates costs of detention at $117 per day, with the cost of housing an average total of 3500 people per year $150 million.

Edwards estimates that allowing asylum seekers to live in the community and paying them the equivalent of the single person’s disability allowance would reduce the cost to $63 per day, saving the taxpayer $80 million per year.
Community-based alternatives to mandatory detention can be found internationally and in the current Australian parole system.

The average costs of community-based programs are (per person per day):

Parole: $5.39.
Probation: $3.94.
Home Detention: $58.83.

Those options are clearly more economically efficient, and much more humane.

(From Myths and Facts sheet compiled by Brisbane City Council)