Kirsty Needham July 25, 2011
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen will sign a bilateral agreement in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: Jessica Shapiro
ANALYSIS
THE federal government will sign its long-awaited refugee swap with Malaysia today before a large Asian media contingent, with the hope that this will loudly broadcast to people-smuggling syndicates that Australia has shut its door to boats.
Asylum seekers arriving by sea since May 7, when the deal was first touted, have revealed they were kept in the dark about the policy change by the people-traffickers who shunted them through remote villages in Indonesia before boarding wooden boats to Christmas Island.
Boat traffic has slowed, but more than 500 asylum seekers have arrived since then — almost enough to fill the quota.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein are to sign a bilateral agreement in Kuala Lumpur, witnessed by stakeholders including the International Organisation for Migration, the UN high commissioner for refugees, Malaysia's police force and human rights council.
For it to work, and "break the people smugglers' model", as Prime Minister Julia Gillard has repeatedly promised, the message has to get through this time.
The document will be scrutinised by sceptical refugee groups in Malaysia and Australia, concerned at the precedent of sending the next 800 asylum seekers — including children and unaccompanied girls — to a country where registered refugees have had no legal rights and live a vulnerable existence supported only by UNHCR as they wait years for resettlement.
During tough negotiations UNHCR has insisted the 800 "transportees" be provided with a legal right to work and guarantees that they will not simply be deported back to the countries they fled by Malaysian police.
Malaysia allows refugees registered with UNHCR to live in the community, rather than detaining them as Australia does. But as families wait years for resettlement, their access to health services and schools is limited by meagre incomes.
Illegal foreign workers in Malaysia are routinely rounded up by police, and it is this risk of arrest if refugees are caught working, or without identity documents, that has caused the greatest problems for the 95,000 asylum seekers in the country.
The Malaysian government this month embarked on a program to fingerprint all 2 million legal foreign workers before an amnesty on August 1 for illegal workers, whom it has offered to deport without penalty. The biometric registration is designed to overcome the trading of black-market identity documents.
To counter-accusations Australia has abrogated its responsibilities under the Refugee Convention, the government has promised millions of dollars to expand UNHCR and IOM operations in Malaysia, and has said it will fund the education, health and resettlement costs of the 800 transportees, who will be clearly identified to Malaysian authorities. Australian officials will have oversight of the program, including monitoring "vulnerable cases".
How this will be done needs to be spelt out in the agreement, which the government will release publicly, and two separate deals with UNHCR and IOM.
Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor told ABC's Insiders program yesterday that both governments had closely involved the UNHCR. "This is an innovative approach and we believe it will undermine the people-smugglers model."
Regarding the more than 500 asylum seekers in limbo on Christmas Island — who arrived since May 7 but won't be accepted by Malaysia — Mr O'Connor appeared to back down from the previous tough line that they would be processed in another country. "Those people that arrived after that date should not assume they will be settled here," he said.
They are unlikely to be sent to Papua New Guinea any time soon. PNG has told the government it wants to reopen a processing centre, but Mr O'Connor said "that is some time off".
Kirsty Needham is immigration correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
