UN slams processing times for boat people

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Created on Friday, 12 October 2012 16:54

Written by Editorial staff

The United Nations has expressed concern over the government's processing of asylum seekers saying that it's taking too long to transfer them to a detention centre like Papua New Guinea.

Such is the number of asylum seekers that both centres aren't ready to take such a vast number of boat people who arrived in Australian waters without immigration visas or documents.

Refugee advocates including an Australian representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that the government has given no indication on how it would deal with moving over 4,000 refugees to regional centres.

Given the fact that only 2,100 refugees can be processed on both offshore facilitiescombined, thousands of boat people are destined to remain in Australian facilities.

The UNHCR Australian representative Ric Towle told The Australian that he is waiting on the government's response to his organisation's apprehensions.

"We have a growing concern about the suspension of processing for the 3,500 people who are still in Australia.

"We expect to see come clarity about their right to be processed sooner rather than later," he said.

Other refugee advocates have likened the current state of processing to what happened in 2010 when then prime minister Kevin Rudd put a freeze on processing claims of those from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Such a freeze caused rioting in the facilities and put bystanders and the staff of the centres in harm's way.

Shadow immigration and citizenship minister Scott Morrison said that the government's approach to border policy is weak and that the current administration has failed to learn from the past.

"There are more people in Christmas Island today than there were at the time of the riots.

"This is a government that doesn't learn from its mistakes," he said.

The UN high commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres wrote a letter to immigration minister Chris Bowen, stating that the no advantage test for asylum seekers, which is a key part of Labor's border plan, is vague and ineffective.

In a press release issued yesterday (October 11), Morrison said that the government has become inactive and passive on the issue while Sri Lankan authorities are doing more to intercept boats leaving their shores.

"The staggering level of failure on our borders under prime minister Gillard has eclipsed all records and continues to grow as boats arrive daily under her half-hearted policies, with 20,000 arrivals already on her watch.

"Meanwhile the continued arrival of Sri Lankans on boats continues to occur while the government stands mute in response, despite Sri Lanka proactively intercepting them," he said.