Gist wrote on Aug 14
th, 2012 at 12:02pm:
Verge wrote on Aug 14
th, 2012 at 11:30am:
If the coalition support it, it doesnt matter what the greens think.
Yes, true. IF they support it...
On the other hand it also offers Greens something of an olive branch on the subject. Gillard can go to them and say she took the recommendations of the panel and those recommendations included key elements of what the Greens were seeking.
Greens are not needed.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the coalition will support legislation to allow offshore processing and welcomes the prime minister's last-minute shift on border protection.Julia Gillard has backed an expert panel on asylum seeker policy which recommends processing arrivals on Nauru and Papua New Guinea, as was done under the previous coalition government's Pacific solution.
Mr Abbott on Tuesday said he welcomed the prime minister's policy conversion but said it should have come "much, much earlier".
"We've had 22,000 illegal arrivals, we've had almost 400 illegal boats, we've had hundreds of drownings at sea because the current government changed a policy that worked," he told reporters in Canberra.
"The problem on our borders has to be sheeted home directly to the government of the day."
Mr Abbott said he'd been saying for years Ms Gillard should pick up the phone to Nauru's president and it seemed she was finally going to do it.
But he insisted offshore processing was just one of three critical elements of border protection, alongside temporary protection visas and turning back the boats when safe to do so.
"To the extent that this legislation allows good policy we will support it," Mr Abbott said.
But he remains sceptical that Labor can make Nauru work "given this government's constant failures".
Mr Abbott said expert panel chair Angus Houston had supported the coalition's position that it was "operationally possible" to turn boats around and that the government's so-called Malaysian solution, as it stood, was flawed.
"I would be very, very surprised if we ever see the Malaysia people swap raise its head again."
Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare says Nauru could be reopened within "weeks not months" after parliament passes the necessary laws.
PNG's Manus Island centre would be up and running "as soon as possible".
The government already had given directions to the Australian Defence Force to establish facilities there as quickly as possible, Mr Clare said.
"First and foremost we need to come to an agreement with both of those nations to establish facilities," he told reporters.
"The sooner we get the legislation through the parliament the sooner we can establish a facility at Nauru and Manus (Island) and the sooner we can stop people risking their lives."
Mr Clare denied the government was engaged in a massive backflip, instead calling it a "compromise".
He said independent oversight at Nauru and Manus Island and doubling the refugee intake meant Labor's policy was "much broader" than the Pacific solution.
Forum
Pages: 
Labor to act quickly to reopen Nauru. (Read 6463 times)
