CANBERRA: Australia may expand its unique refugee swap deal with Malaysia, with Immigration Minister Chris Bowen saying the nations saw the controversial agreement as a “pilot project”, said an AFP report.
Bowen and Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein yesterday signed a pact where 800 boat people will be sent to Malaysia from Australia, which, in return, will resettle 4,000 refugees processed by Kuala Lumpur.
The Australian minister, who was speaking from Kuala Lumpur, said the cost of the arrangement could also rise from the forecast of about A$292 million over four years.
Australia has agreed to pay for the basic healthcare and education of the children of the asylum seekers sent to Malaysia, where they will join some 90,000 registered refugees already in Malaysia.
Unlike other refugees, they will be permitted to work to support themselves.
Refugee activists have attacked the deal, accusing Australia of dodging its duties to boat people and ignoring their human rights by sending them to a country that is not a signatory to the United Nations convention on refugees.
Human Rights Watch urged the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) not to endorse the agreement, warning it could erode protection for asylum seekers across the Asia-Pacific.
“This would set the worst type of precedent and we’re concerned it could start a wider erosion of protection for refugees throughout the Asia-Pacific region,” warned Phil Robertson of HRW’s Asia division.
“The talk in the neighbourhood will be, if Australia can do it, why can’t we?”
The UNHCR said its preference was for asylum-seekers arriving by boat in Australian territory to be processed in Australia.
But it said it had been consulted on the deal and both governments recognised the special arrangements needed for vulnerable people, including unaccompanied minors.
Amnesty International, however, warned that adequate safeguards were not in place and asylum seekers sent to Malaysia could face lengthy waits to determine their status, as well as inhumane detention conditions and even caning.
Canberra has denied this.
Canberra hopes the new arrangement will deter refugees from making the dangerous journey as it struggles to prevent the wave of rickety, wooden fishing boats carrying asylum seekers from arriving from transit hubs in Asia.
Asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia spiked at close to 7,000 in 2010, but scores are believed to have died en route with about 50 men, women and children dying in a boat wreck at Christmas Island in December 2010.
Fewer than 2,000 boatpeople have arrived this year, with the government saying its Malaysia policy, announced in early May, as a deterrent.
“I’m confident it will have a big impact on people’s decision to risk their lives, jump on a boat, pay the money to the people smugglers just to face the prospect of being returned to Malaysia,” Bowen said today of the new deal. – Agencies