Wanted: tropical island to fill with asylum seekers

Image by Ben Thomson

This week’s immigration news takes an interesting route. What starts off as a tropical jaunt to Papua New Guinea with our fearless leader soon leaves us sunburnt, seasick, and ultimately filled with embarrassment and regret. Interested? Then stumble aboard and join us for the gut-wrenching oceanic voyage that is The Hate Boat.

–Australia and Papua New Guinea are currently looking for other Pacific Nations to join what could be the shittest club ever and help resettle asylum seekers anywhere but Australia. Previously PNG’s agreement with Australia was to resettle all asylum seekers on Manus Island but now they’re looking for others in the region to “share the burden”. The original agreement was made between PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (no not the first time, the second time), but it always hinted at finding other nations in the region to come onboard. At the time of the announcement nine months ago PNG’s neighbours were less than impressed, with the Fiji Foreign Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola being one of the most vocal: “The Fiji government is decidedly less than happy about Australia's plan to move asylum seekers seeking to settle in Australia into Melanesia, into our neighbourhood. For an Australian problem, you have proposed a Melanesian solution that threatens to destabilise the already delicate social and economic balances in our societies”. So it looks like Fiji’s out… Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, can we put you guys down?

–Mr Abbott  backed comments by the PNG PM this week that he suspects most detainees on Manus Island aren’t genuine refugees. Instead Mr O’Neill and Mr Abbott believe the majority of asylum seekers in detention are “economic refugees”. Nice try asylum seekers but Tony’s hip to your game. Those seeking asylum who’s claims are found to be genuine will be resettled in PNG as soon as May, with the parliament there moving swiftly to make the necessary legal changes. After meeting with PM O’Neill over the weekend Mr Abbott said he was confident there would be, “"swift processing, swift repatriation and swift resettlement". Though “swift”, I’m guessing, wouldn’t be the first word that came to mind for those currently in detention.

–You know how the old saying goes, kill one human rights inquiry and another one just takes it’s place—well it’s been proven again with PNG Justice David Cannings initiating a second inquiry after his first was effectively shut down. Lawyers for the PNG government obtained a stay order in the Supreme Court against the inquiry, claiming Cannings was biased. This however, didn’t do much to stop Justice Cannings who simply launched a second inquiry and at the same time granted Australian lawyer Jay Williams with the power to visit the centre. Mr Williams has since launched a legal bid for the freedom of detainees claiming their detention is unlawful because they were deported from Australia to PNG against their will; that their detention is arbitrary and indefinite; and that conditions in the centre are inhumane.

–Details about the death of 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker Raza Barati continue to be revealed, not by investigation on behalf of the government, but rather by detention centre detainees shouting at journalists. Two Australian media organizations were allowed a rare tour of the Manus Island centre with the condition of not being allowed to formally interview detainees. The detainees got around this condition by simply speaking openly to media as they passed or by yelling. The asylum seekers told media Barati died after being thrown off a balcony and being beaten in the head to death. ''They hit him and he fell from here and they hit him until he died,'' said one asylum seeker. The comments were backed up by others from the centre, but none elaborated on exactly who hit Barati.

– Look, the government warned us before they were even in power, there’s a budget emergency and we need to get spending under control. One way the government is looking to recoup some dollars is by billing asylum seekers for the legal cost of fighting them in Federal Court. Asylum seekers currently following action over a data breach, in which there personal information was published online, were told by lawyers representing Scott Morrison they can expect to be billed for his legal costs if they fail. Because you know who is flush with cash? Asylum seekers in detention who aren’t who aren’t legally allowed to seek employment in Australia.

Follow Mitch on Twitter: @MitchMaxxParker