TONY EASTLEY: While political attention is on the carbon tax, the government is close to finalising another of its key policies.
The ABC understands the agreement with Malaysia to swap asylum seekers for refugees is all but complete and just needs the final signatures of each government.
Naomi Woodley is in Canberra and joins us now.
Naomi, good morning. So what’s left to do before this deal is finalised?
NAOMI WOODLEY: Well Tony, as we understand it the agreement simply needs to be signed off in a formal signing ceremony and the logistics of organising that with respective ministers from each country is the reason why it isn’t being announced immediately, but we do understand it’ll be announced before the end of the month.
And it is broadly in the terms that were first outlined by the prime minister – 800 asylum seekers will be sent to Malaysia in return for 4,000 certified refugees coming to Australia.
The Immigration minister’s office won’t confirm that the deal is done. In a statement they say that the government is simply in advanced stages of final discussions, but the deal which was meant to take weeks has taken months and the government will be reluctant to announce it before it is formally signed off as it has taken a bit longer than they expected.
TONY EASTLEY: Around 400 asylum seekers, as I understand it, have arrived since the deal was announced that they were planning to do. What happens to all those asylum seekers?
NAOMI WOODLEY: Yes, they’re still being held on Christmas Island and since the deal was announced in May the government in announcing that a new boatload of asylum seekers has arrived, has said that those people would be processed in a third country.
Now we understand that they won’t be sent to Malaysia as perhaps was first thought, but the government hopes to send them to another centre on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea; reopening that centre that was used under the Pacific Solution.
But negotiations with the PNG government have been much slower and the fact that those, that group of people, around 400, are just simply being held on Christmas Island, their claims haven’t been assessed, there’s actually two High Court challenges to their detention and the fact that their claims have not been assessed.
So in some ways this is a neater solution. They won’t be sent to Malaysia, it gives the government more time to negotiate a separate deal with Papua New Guinea. But for those people they simply remain, as the Greens call it “in legal limbo” on Christmas Island waiting to find out precisely where they will be sent.
TONY EASTLEY: Politically, Naomi, the government needs to sort this sooner rather than later and be seen to have sorted it and it would be a good breaker, I guess, for the carbon tax issue.
NAOMI WOODLEY: It would. Announcing a deal, announcing the final agreement, as you say, would be a win. It will be hoping that it has some effect on the number of asylum seeker boats arriving in Australia.
They have slowed but they are still coming and there’s the obvious question of what happens when the 800 number is reached? And that’s where deals with other countries comes into it.
It would, this deal does again put the government off-side with the Greens, and that’s an interesting dynamic given how closely the two – Labour and the Greens – have been linked with the carbon tax.
So, yes, the government would be hoping to finalise this as soon as possible. But, as I said, given that they’ve copped, you know, a fair bit of criticism for announcing something that clearly wasn’t finalised two months ago, they’re not going to want to repeat that mistake.
They’ll announce it when they finally have the signatures on the page.
TONY EASTLEY: Naomi Woodley in Canberra.