http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pacific-solution-ends-but-tough-stance-to-re...December 8, 2007
WHILE 81 Sri Lankan and Burmese refugees held on Nauru are to be allowed to settle in Australia, the Federal Government has announced it will repatriate 16 recent Indonesian boat arrivals to their home island, Roti.
The imminent relocation from Nauru marks the beginning of the end for the highly controversial "Pacific solution" - clearing the way for closure of the detention facility there and a second already empty one on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
However, the decision to quickly send the latest boat arrivals back to Indonesia from detention on Australia's Christmas Island is intended to send a message that Labor will maintain a tough stance on border security.
In Bali next week for climate change talks, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, are expected to hold up the decision as evidence that asylum claims that are economically motivated will not be countenanced.
The 10 children and six adults were rescued from their sinking boat 650 kilometres west of Darwin on November 20.
Family members on the small island of Roti said they owed money to illegal fishing syndicate operators because Australian authorities had previously burnt their boats for illegally fishing in Australian waters.
But the new Labor Government accepts the argument that such claims do not fit the internationally accepted refugee convention definition for people fleeing persecution for political, religious or social reasons.
"This represents a firm but fair approach to the orderly migration of people to Australia," the Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, said yesterday when announcing the repatriation.
Labor has complained that detention of boat arrivals on Nauru and Manus by the Howard government had wasted around $300 million since 2001 and had tarnished Australia's international human rights reputation.
The new Government is reviewing private contracts covering administration of both detention facilities.
In February, 83 Sri Lankans were intercepted in a leaking boat off northern Australia. Under the previous government it was determined that 74 of them were genuine refugees, but as a disincentive to others third resettlement countries would be sought.
One was refused refugee status and seven charged with the indecent assault of a Nauruan woman have not had their applications decided yet. One Sri Lankan remains in hospital in Perth for shrapnel injuries sustained in his homeland.
Seven Burmese asylum seekers from the Rohingya ethnic minority, who arrived in Australian waters by boat and have been on Nauru since September last year, were like the Sri Lankans awaiting third-country resettlement.
But finding countries to take the Nauru detainees proved problematic before the change of government and critics argued that if they had gone to a developed country such as the United States it would not have constituted a disincentive to other would-be boat arrivals.
There were tensions between the Howard government and Indonesia over the granting of asylum to 43 people who arrived by boat from Indonesia's West Papua Province, which borders Papua New Guinea.
Although the decision in relation to the latest boat arrivals was made simpler because there was no claim of human rights abuses, any future arrivals from West Papua claiming rights violations could again strain relations between Canberra and Jakarta.
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