Canberra sticks out unwelcome mat to arrivals

CANBERRA - Australia will turn the vice on asylum seekers arriving by boat regardless of who wins the coming election, returning to a form of previous conservative Prime Minister John Howard's "Pacific solution" and adopting a range of other tough measures.

The difference between the approaches outlined yesterday by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott have largely been reduced to linguistics as the two leaders react to growing alarm in the suburbs at the surge in boats intercepted off the West Australian coast.

Even as the pair competed for media space, internet polls reflected the forces driving asylum seekers as electoral pawns: 65.7 per cent of respondents to a News Ltd poll said they were worried by the influx; 29 per cent on Fairfax sites were "extremely worried", with a further 26 per cent "very" or "quite" worried.

It was the kind of response that has alarmed advocates of a more humane approach to the issue, drawing warnings of xenophobia from the Greens, and concern from unions and human rights campaigners.

But the surge in arrivals that has seen 75 boats carrying more than 3500 people intercepted in the Indian Ocean, and the crush that has overwhelmed detention facilities on Christmas Island, made a crackdown inevitable.

The Government had already eroded some of the relaxations of policy enacted by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, increasing surveillance, tougher penalties against people smugglers, increasing co-operation with transit countries, and even risking a diplomatic standoff with Indonesia.

With more than 2500 people detained on Christmas Island, 1695 asylum seekers have been sent to the mainland, including facilities in the remote West Australian Goldfields town of Leonora, and Curtin Air Force Base near Derby, in the north of the state.

Yesterday Gillard revealed a new, much harder line. Immediately, the Government will lift the suspension of visa processing imposed on asylum seekers from Sri Lanka in a bid to discourage the flood that followed the end of three decades of civil war on the island.

Although this offers more than 180 people trapped in limbo by the decision the opportunity to apply for refugee status, their chances of success have been greatly reduced by a report released on Monday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

While warning that individuals remain at risk and need to be dealt with carefully, the report said an improved human rights situation meant there was no longer any justification for automatic protection for groups considered at risk.

Gillard said she now had a message for Sri Lankans: "Do not pay a people smuggler, do not risk your life, only to arrive in Australian waters and find that, far more likely than not, you will be quickly sent home by plane."

Gillard indicated a similar approach was likely for Afghans - whose visa processing suspension is due for review in October - and said negotiations were already under way with Kabul for the return of any not found to be legitimate refugees.

But the major thrust of Gillard's new policy is a planned processing centre in East Timor, the key to a regional approach that is proposed to include transit countries, Dili and New Zealand.

Although dismissing comparisons with Howard's "Pacific solution" and its camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, Gillard's Timor proposal is essentially the same in concept, and with identical reasoning - blocking refugees from the mainland and thus removing the incentive for people smugglers to send people to Australia.

"Why risk a dangerous journey if you will simply be returned to the regional processing centre?" Gillard said. Unlike Howard's camps, Gillard's would be established with the UNHCR - preliminary talks have already been held with Commissioner Antonio Guterres - and in co-operation with partners including New Zealand.

"It would of course have to be properly run, properly auspiced, properly structured centre," she said.

Gillard has spoken to East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister John Key, both of whom have said they would consider the proposal, although Timor's Deputy Prime Minister Jose Luis Guterres said yesterday his country was not yet ready to establish such a centre.

Guterres told the ABC the proposal was being discussed by several ministries and that an official response would be given in a few weeks, but said: "We have so many issues that we have to deal with and bringing another problem, another issue to the country, I don't think it's wise for any politician to do it."

Gillard also intends increasing penalties for people smugglers - the key target of her new approach - and to ensure asylum seekers granted refugee status shouldered the same obligations as other Australians, including learning English, finding work, and sending their children to school.

But she ruled out turning boats back at sea, an Opposition policy she described as hollow and unworkable, predicting that asylum seekers would sink their own vessels rather than return to Indonesia.

Abbott said a Coalition Government would turn boats back when circumstances allowed, and restore offshore processing in another country.

Refugee status would be refused to anyone suspected of destroying proof of identity to end Labor's "tick and flick" approach, and temporary protection visas allowing only restricted rights to asylum seekers granted refugee status would be reinstated.

The Coalition would also increase ministerial powers to intervene in the refugee application process, and adopt a Canadian system allowing groups within Australia to sponsor bonded refugees.