UNHCR urges Australia to quickly process bridging visas to avoid social "time bomb"

Australia risks facing a "social time bomb" unless it can quickly process up to 30,000 asylum seekers on bridging visas, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Wednesday.

The refugee agency's Volker Turk has warned the Australian government that the deteriorating physical and mental health of those on bridging visas (those in the community but are not afforded the benefits of being an Australian citizen) would only be worsened by further delaying the process.

It is estimated that 30,000 people, who arrived in Australia by boat during the previous Labor government, are still on bridging visas, and Turk told Fairfax Media that it was "very urgent" the government do something to avoid widespread discontent.

"It's a social time bomb if you don't address it, and it is something that is utterly avoidable," he said.

"In any country in the world, if you have the resources, you can actually process cases in a fair and efficient procedure."

Turk said case studies of those currently not fully integrated into the community have shown many asylum seekers suffering high levels of anxiety about their futures, poor mental and physical health and growing discontent.

"We are really looking at finding a solution for everyone because people have been in a very difficult situation in detention for prolonged periods of time with massive impact on their health, especially on their mental health," Turk said.

According to Fairfax Media, 10 asylum seekers on bridging visas have taken their lives in the last two years, while it has been revealed a man who set himself on fire at a bank in Melbourne last week was also on the visa.

Professor Nicholas Procter from the University of South Australia said the government needed to act quickly to break the stigma of "lethal hopelessness" among the asylum seeker community.

"There are increasing reports of many people within the asylum-seeker community being at advanced stages of feeling mentally trapped, figuratively boxed in, especially hopeless and helpless," he told Fairfax Media. Endit