Resettlement in Papua New Guinea will be the only option for asylum-seekers arriving by boat in Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Friday.
The aim is to deter mostly Middle Eastern asylum-seekers from paying smugglers for a passage across to Australia from Indonesia.
More than 15,000 have crossed in Indonesian fishing vessels this year, one third of them Iranians.
Australia’s immigration processing centre in Papua New Guinea will be expanded from 200 beds to 3,000 to accommodate new arrivals.
“From now on, any asylum-seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as a refugee,” Rudd said in Brisbane.
“If they are found to be genuine refugees, they’ll be resettled in Papua New Guinea.”
Rudd was flanked by Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, who had flown in from Port Moresby for the joint announcement.
The deal lasts a year, with annual extensions. No limit was set on the number of asylum-seekers who could be transferred for resettlement.
Papua New Guinea, rich in resources but chronically poor and notoriously lawless, is a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention.
Currently, 215 asylum-seekers are housed in tents In Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, with a permanent facility for 600 to open in January.
“Critically, the convention requires us not to send genuine refugees back to the countries they have fled from. In this arrangement we honour that undertaking,” Rudd said.
“The convention requires us to provide proper humane treatment for people. Under this arrangement we’ll do so.”
Rudd described Papua New Guinea as “an emerging economy with a strong future, a robust democracy” but said the prospect of living out their lives there would be a strong disincentive for asylum-seekers to leave their home countries.
He said he expected arrivals to drop off once the word went out about what awaited those setting out for new lives in Australia.
“Asylum seekers who’re determined to be genuine refugees will, therefore, have a country of settlement, namely Papua New Guinea,” he said.
Rudd did not say whether women and children, who are currently not sent to Manus Island, would be sent there. He did not give details of any inducements offered to O’Neill to take the asylum-seekers.
Since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Labour government took office in 2007, more than 46,000 boat-people have arrived in Australia.
Rudd, who must call a parliamentary election before the end of the year, turned to Port Moresby for help in stemming the flow after deaths at sea and the arrival of more than one boat a day at Christmas Island, the nearest landfall for boats leaving Indonesia.
Rudd, who took over from Julia Gillard last month, received a boost with news from Jakarta that the Indonesian government would stop issuing 30-day tourist visas to those arriving from Iran.
Indonesian Justice Minister Amir Syamsuddin recently signed the letter putting a stop to the visas on arrival for Iranians, immigration official Engelbertus Rustarto said on Friday.
This year about 5,000 such visas have been issued, with a majority of the holders making their way on to Australia by boat. (dpa/NAN)