Deal with Philippines to settle refugees

More than 200 asylum seekers that include 50 children are seeking legal protection after they were taken to Australia for medical care that was lacking in Nauru and on Manus Island, the site of another detention centre in Papua New Guinea.

Refugees who travelled to Australia by boat could be permanently resettled in the Philippines under a deal being negotiated, but senior government sources fear the premature leaking of the deal to the media could see the proposal scuttled.

Pamela Curr, the detention and refugee rights advocate at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, has never observed anything like it before – every week, the longstanding campaigner hears of another catastrophic sexual assault on young refugee women on the island.

But the Coalition and Labor argue that permanent resettlement must be denied to any asylum seeker who arrives by boat to discourage them from travelling to Australia in risky leaky boats, chartered by people smugglers.

“They will have said, ‘Philippines is one of the few”. For now, they continue to live in the “open” detention centre while new accommodation is built.

“We can provide the same guarantees that we can to Australians that travel to the Philippines each year, the expats that live in the Philippines and across south-east Asia or other parts of the world”, he said, adding that refugees would be resettled there only on a voluntary basis.

The report described the impending deal as “the fruits of months of diplomatic door knocking by Australian officials in the region, who have been desperate to find a solution to the increasingly politically problematic detention centers on Manus Island and Nauru”.

Counsel for the Commonwealth Justin Gleeson told the High Court of Australia that Canberra was merely helping Nauru “carry out its law on its soil”, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Nauru unexpectedly said on Monday that all 600 asylum seekers held there would be allowed to move freely around the island and that all their asylum applications would be processed this week.

Claims from people who had left Nauru for medical treatment, and from their relatives, would be delayed, she said. Dutton was asked what guarantees of safety Australia could give refugees who resettle in a nation that is grappling with violent kidnappings and terrorism.

Australia grants refugee visas to 13,750 people annually under various global agreements.

“We’ve been very clear about the fact that people are not going to come to settle permanently in our country”.

The Cambodia plan, under which Australia pledged $29 million in aid in return for Cambodia’s accepting refugees from Nauru, has also been criticized as a waste of money.

Amid a refugee crisis that rivals that in the Mediterranean, Australia’s right-wing government wants its poorer neighbours to take in those fleeing war and poverty but unwelcome Down Under.