Australia puts price on Cambodia refugee deal

BBC News | 26 September 2014

Mr Morrison is due to sign the deal with Cambodia on Friday afternoon

Australia will pay Cambodia A$40m (£22m, $35m) over four years to take in transferred refugees, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says. 

Mr Morrison, who will sign the deal in Phnom Penh later today, said Australia would also pay resettlement costs. 

The deal has drawn stringent criticism from rights groups, who say Cambodia is completely ill-equipped to take in and protect the refugees.

But Mr Morrison said it was a step towards achieving policy goals. 

"It enables us to fulfil on the policy which says no-one will be resettled in Australia," he said. 

Australia has in recent months introduced controversial policies aimed at ending the flow of asylum boats from Indonesia. 

'New low'

 

Mr Morrison told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the A$40m would go towards various "development aid projects", and the amount was on top of A$79m that Australia already gave in aid to Cambodia.

Rights groups say that Cambodia is an impoverished nation ill-equipped to handle the refugees.

He said only genuine refugees currently housed in a processing centre in Nauru would be sent.

Under the deal, only those who chose to go to Cambodia would be resettled there. Transfers were likely to begin later this year and there was no cap on numbers, he said. 

Cambodia's Interior Minister Sar Kheng, however, said they would take a very small number of refugees under the pilot phase, ranging from two to five people, according to The Phnom Penh Post.

Australia and asylum

• Asylum seekers - mainly from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Iran - travel to Australia's Christmas Island by boat from Indonesia
• The number of boats rose sharply in 2012 and early 2013. Scores of people have died making the journey
• To stop the influx, the government has adopted hard-line measures intended as a deterrent
• Everyone who arrives is detained. Under a new policy, they are processed in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Those found to be refugees will be resettled in PNG, Nauru or Cambodia
• Tony Abbot's government has also adopted a policy of tow-backs, or turning boats around
• Rights groups and the UN have voiced serious concerns about the policies and accuse Australia of shirking international obligations

Australia asylum: Why is it controversial?

Asked whether Cambodia was equipped to receive refugees, Mr Morrison said the South East Asian nation was "making great progress".

Rights groups, however, say Cambodia is an impoverished nation with a record of corruption. They have pointed out that it has in the past sent back refugees to countries where they have been persecuted.

Amnesty International has described the deal as a "new low in Australia's deplorable and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers". 

It accused officials of "putting the short-term political interests of the Australian government ahead of the protection of some of the world's most vulnerable people". 

The ABC ran pictures of a group of demonstrators who had gathered outside the Australian embassy in Cambodia on Friday, held off by riot police.

Australia-based Refugee Action Coalition said it would stage a lunchtime protest in Sydney.

The group's spokesman Ian Rintoul said: "Rather than give the Cambodia government A$40m to undermine human rights, that money could have been spent providing real aid and services that are needed in Cambodia and Australia."