MICHELLE GRATTAN August 13, 2012
THE Houston panel today is expected to endorse offshore processing to deter people smuggling, as a rush of boats arrive ahead of the seemingly remote possibility of a break in the deadlock.
Between Friday afternoon and late yesterday six boats were intercepted with 265 on board.
This was on top of 108 boats with 7362 passengers and 183 crew that arrived this year as of Friday afternoon.
Without a sign of a compromise, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said: ''What we're seeing is people smugglers working out what the Australian people worked out a long time ago - that the Parliament needs to resolve this.
''They are trying to get in front of the Parliament and they are running - if you like - a closing-down sale because they know offshore processing is a proper deterrent.''
Having talked up the panel, the government will be under great pressure to accept its recommendations, whether they are in line with its policy or not. Mr Bowen anticipated that some of the recommendations would need legislation.
He told the ABC the ''time for talking at each other, the time for political point-scoring is over. We can argue about the benefits of Malaysia, we can argue about the drawbacks of Nauru, but the time for that has passed.
''I think the Australian people are looking to the Parliament to implement offshore processing if it's recommended by the expert panel.''
The opposition remains adamant it will not budge from its policy: it opposes the Malaysian people swap, wants Nauru reopened, and urges turning boats back when safe to do so.
One option would be for the panel to endorse the Malaysia solution with tougher safeguards. The Houston panel, which includes refugee expert Paris Aristotle and former Foreign Affairs chief Michael L'Estrange, heard strong evidence about the hazards of turning back boats.
Opposition spokesman Scott Morrison said it was suggested ''it is for the opposition to form a response'' to the panel's recommendations. But ''it is for the government to form a response to it. It is the government that does not have a policy''.
He reiterated that the Coalition had made clear all along that if the government sought to abolish the Migration Act's protections - as in the Malaysia solution - ''that is not something we are prepared to sign up for''.
The government will receive the Houston report early this morning and it will be released within hours. The battle over the boats will dominate the first week of the spring parliamentary session starting tomorrow.
Greens spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said that while the Greens would consider all recommendations that were within the law, ''any recommendation to amend the Migration Act to make it worse for refugees, to hurt refugees, the Greens will not accept''.