Australia announces Papua New Guinea asylum deal

BBC News, 19 July 2013

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Thousands of asylum seekers attempt
to reach Australia by boat every year

People arriving by boat to seek asylum will no longer be resettled in Australia but will go to Papua New Guinea, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced.

The news came as Mr Rudd set out an overhaul of asylum policy ahead of a general election expected shortly.

Australia has seen a sharp rise in the number of asylum-seekers arriving by boat in recent months.

Mr Rudd said the "hard-line decision" was taken to ensure border security.

The prime minister, who ousted Julia Gillard as Labor Party leader amid dismal polling figures last month, made the announcement in Brisbane flanked by the PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill.

"From now on, any asylum-seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as a refugee," Mr Rudd said.

Under the agreement, new arrivals will be sent to PNG for assessment and settled there if found to be a refugee.

To accommodate the new arrivals, an offshore processing centre in PNG's Manus island will be significantly expanded.

No cap has been placed on the number of people Australia can send to PNG, Mr Rudd said.

The prime minister said the move was aimed at dissuading people from making the dangerous journey to Australia by boat.

"Our country has had enough of people-smugglers exploiting asylum-seekers and seeing them drown on the high seas," he said.

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Rescue Crews Pull 123 Asylum-Seekers From Ocean After Boat Sinks

Jakarta Globe, June 27, 2012

A picture released by the Australian Maritime and Safety Authority (AMSA)
shows a boat which according to the AMSA was taken mid-morning before
the boat sank near Christmas Island on Wednesday, June 27, 2012. The boat,
 carrying around 150 suspected asylum seekers, capsized on Wednesday between
Indonesia and Australia's Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, the second such
 incident in less than week, highlighting Australia's struggle to stem the flow
of boat-people. (Reuters Photo/Australian Maritime and Safety Authority/Handout)  

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Rescuers plucked 123 people from the ocean Wednesday after an asylum-seeker boat sank en route to Australia, barely a week after another vessel went down in the same area, killing up to 90.

The rickety ship capsized 107 nautical miles north of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean and then sank, an Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman said.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said between 123 and 133 people were on board, revised down from earlier estimates of 150.

“As we speak my best advice is that 123 people have been rescued,” she told parliament as the pressure was turned up on Australian politicians to break their deadlock on how to deal with the arrival of asylum-seekers.

The incident comes just days after another boat with around 200 people on board went down in the Indian Ocean as it made its way to Australia.

Rescuers managed to save 110 people and 17 bodies were recovered from Thursday’s capsize, but no other survivors have been found.

Three merchant vessels, including the MV Bison Express, a Philippines-flagged livestock carrier, were on the scene of Wednesday’s disaster, which happened in Indonesian waters.

AMSA said two Australian navy ships and a spotter aircraft capable of dropping liferaft were also helping with the rescue effort in conditions described as “fair, not ideal.”

In a statement, Australian Customs and Border Protection said police received a satellite phone call early Wednesday from the vessel.

AMSA “initiated an immediate response to the report and continues to coordinate the search and rescue effort”.

Details were passed to the Indonesian search and rescue authority Basarnas, which said it received a report that the generator was broken and the boat was taking on water.

A photo from the MV Bison posted on the AMSA website showed a small, basic-looking boat crowded with people on its decks, apparently taken before it capsized.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said most of the passengers were believed to be Afghans and there were women and children on board, though this could not be confirmed.

The accident is the latest in a series of refugee boat disasters in recent years, as unseaworthy, overloaded vessels packed with desperate migrants struggle to reach Australia.

Most boats originate in Indonesia, but there has been a recent spike in attempts from Sri Lanka.

Though they come in relatively small numbers by global standards, asylum-seekers are a sensitive political issue in Australia, dominating 2010 elections due to a record 6,555 arrivals.

Both sides of Australian politics support offshore processing of asylum-seekers but differ on where it should be conducted.

Canberra clinched a deal last year to send 800 boat-people to Malaysia in exchange for 4,000 of that country’s registered refugees in a bid to deter people-smugglers from the dangerous maritime voyage to Australia.

But Gillard’s fragile coalition government was unable to pass the required legislation through parliament without the support of the opposition, amid concerns Malaysia was not a signatory to UN refugee conventions.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott, who supports processing on the Pacific island of Nauru and turning boats back when possible, again ruled out the Malaysian solution Wednesday.

In response, Gillard pushed for a private members bill by independent MP Rob Oakeshott which would allow an immigration minister to designate any nation as an “offshore assessment country” if it was party to the Bali Process.

The Bali Process is a regional cooperative framework for dealing with asylum-seekers involving more than 40 countries.

Gillard offered, as a gesture of compromise, to re-open a detention centre on Nauru while pressing ahead with her Malaysia deal if the opposition agreed to vote for the Oakeshott bill.

Agence France-Presse

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37 illegal immigrants captured in Jakarta Bay

Hasyim Widhiarto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 04/06/2010 4:25 PM

Thirty-seven male Afghan nationals were captured by patrolling officers from Jakarta Police's water police division in waters off Bidadari Island in Jakarta Bay early Tuesday and admitted they were heading to Australia to look for political asylum.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar said the officers found the illegal immigrants floating in two fishing boats crewed by two Indonesian nationals identified as Ending and Ardun.

"We are still questioning them to find out how they entered Indonesian waters and which route they used," Boy said, adding that the illegal immigrants now came under the division’s jurisdiction.

Boy said the police were now coordinating with UNHCR representatives in Jakarta to decide the future of the asylum seekers.

"But it is almost certain they will be deported from Indonesia," he said.

Jakarta bars Abbott asylum boat plan

Paul Maley, The Australian , January 04, 2010 12:00AM

INDONESIA has rejected a proposal by Tony Abbott to tow seaworthy asylum boats back to Indonesia, saying Australia must deal with boats in its own waters.

As Border Protection Command yesterday intercepted a boat carrying 76 asylum-seekers off Christmas Island -- the first this year -- former immigration minister Philip Ruddock said the Howard government towed four boats back to Indonesia shortly after the Tampa crisis of 2001.

But Mr Ruddock acknowledged there were problems with such measures, saying people-smugglers began sabotaging their boats once they realised they were likely to be turned back on the high seas.

"Certainly, smugglers . . . would encourage people to sabotage vessels to ensure that they weren't seaworthy and that the return was not possible," Mr Ruddock told The Australian. "And in many cases that happened."

The Howard government minister's remarks followed a pledge by the Opposition Leader last week to tow asylum boats back into Indonesian waters.

The proposal, which was also endorsed by Kevin Rudd prior to the last election, was attacked by refugee groups and migration law experts as inhumane and illegal.

Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser described the suggestion as "miserable".

"The idea of turning the boats back is pure Pauline Hanson," Mr Fraser said.

Mr Ruddock said his government was able to tow boats back by working quietly with the Indonesians and not engaging in "megaphone diplomacy".

But yesterday, Indonesia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah indicated that Jakarta would not agree to a repeat of the practice. "I don't believe we will be very happy with that policy," he said.

Rather, Australia should deal with boats in its territorial waters, just as Indonesia managed boats found on its waterways, Mr Faizasyah said.

Mr Ruddock said he recalled four instances where boats were returned to Indonesia.

He said the policy was handled on a case-by-case basis, always with the consent of Jakarta.

"If vessels were capable of being returned, they were," he said.

"Indonesia made it clear that, provided we didn't essentially crow about it, they would receive them back and they would then be available for processing or detained by the International Organisation for Migration and processed by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

"Where vessels could not be adequately secured, they were then taken to offshore processing centres at Nauru and Manus."

Mr Ruddock said the policy helped alter the "psychology" around people-smuggling.

"(Asylum-seekers) weren't prepared to pay up front because there was no guarantee that if they got to Manus or Nauru, or if the vessel was brought back to Indonesia, that they were getting what they wanted, which was access to Australia," he said.