ENHANCING COOPERATION: Deputy Secretary of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Miles Kupa (right) shakes hands with Hishammuddin after their meeting in Putrajaya. — AFP photo
PUTRAJAYA: The proposed asylum seeker swap deal between Malaysia and Australia is set to go on, with discussions now also involving representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and International Organisation for Migration.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said yesterday that the deal, despite objections from certain quarters, might be the start of a new way of transnational crime solution, which people might want to adopt 50 years from now.
“Business cannot be as usual. If Malaysia and Australia would like to think outside the box and find the solution that nobody else has found, for all you know, it may work,” he told reporters after meeting an Australian delegation and representatives of UNHCR and IOM at his office here.
In the proposed deal, Australia is to send 800 boat arrivals to Malaysia for processing and accept 4,000 processed asylum seekers in return.
Asked whether an objection from an opposition leader in Australia would affect the deal, Hishammuddin said it is the opposition’s business to oppose.
“At the end of the day, it’s for us to convince the majority of Australians and Malaysians that we have no other interest but to find a solution to this problem,” he said.
Hishammuddin said the deal was not just about refugees and asylum seekers, because if it were, it would be looked at from a different level of standards and concerns.
He said the deal was about irregular migrants and it concerned human trafficking and money laundering which may have links with ‘other movements’. — Bernama