Julia Gillard is likely to rescue her High Court-doomed Malaysia Solution policy, with Labor MPs expected to back changes this morning to the current Migration Act to allow offshore processing.
Caucus is meeting at 9am to vote on the policy, after earlier meetings this morning with cabinet. The opposition is expected to also back the immigration law changes as paves the legal return to processing on Nauru, an opposition policy.
Andrew Probyn in The West Australian argues the most likely move is that the government will propose the immigration minister “be given unfettered discretion to declare another country suitable to send asylum seekers”, with the drafting options to include Manus Island, Nauru and Malaysia, although the government won’t actually re-open Nauru as that would be seen as a win for the opposition. “The West Australian understands this is the favoured option Cabinet will discuss today because it would not only circumvent the High Court’s ruling but also put the Opposition Leader’s preference for reopening the detention centre on Nauru beyond legal doubt,” writes Probyn.
Offshore processing is still valid despite the High Court decision, it just requires a little work by the government, writes former Commonwealth solicitor-general David Bennett in The Sydney Morning Herald:
“… there is no legal reason why steps could not be taken with Nauru, Papua New Guinea or Malaysia (or indeed any other willing partner country), which would enable the minister to declare them satisfactory. It is significant that Nauru has now acceded to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Much attention to detail would be required. In particular, any agreement with Australia should, unlike the agreement with Malaysia, be expressed to be legally binding.”
Gillard will have to “stare down the dissent” from left-wing MPs within her own party in order to get the policy passed, writes Steven Scott in The Courier Mail. “But there is growing concern within the ALP that a deal with Tony Abbott could end up hurting the party and see it lose more votes to both the Greens and the Coalition,” notes Scott.
Stewart West, an immigration minister in the Hawke government, came out swinging against Gillard and Bowen in The Age today:
“How stubborn and arrogant can they be? Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen are exceeding their earlier petulance over the High Court’s decision on asylum seeker policy. They are determinedly placing themselves to the right of Tony Abbott.”
But how difficult will the opposition — who the government is likely to need in order to get the Migration Act passed — be on these changes? It supports offshore processing on Nauru but not Malaysia, explains shadow immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison in The Australian:
“On Nauru it is more possible to deliver and guarantee practical protections because it is a small country with a very supportive government and a people who have a very strong connection with Australia. In Malaysia, and even Papua New Guinea, the delivery of protections and changes to domestic law are far more difficult.”
Tony Abbott is “putting politics ahead of policy”, argues Dennis Shanahan in The Australian. “Instead of being content to force the Gillard government into a humiliating deal with the Coalition to remedy the policy problem left by the High Court’s rejection of the Prime Minister’s Malaysia asylum-seeker-refugee swap, Abbott is giving no quarter,” he writes.
Meanwhile, Erika Feller, the senior United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees official that the government cited in its High Court submission as being supportive of the Malaysia deal now argues for a “top to bottom” review of Australian refugee policy and is offering the UNHCR to conduct it. “It might well be that for a whole range of reasons a review of the process would suggest that it’s just much more expeditious, more effective and probably fairer to review the claims in the proper national system onshore,” Feller told ABC Radio’s Sunday Profile.
The majority of voters want asylum seekers to be processed onshore, according to the latest Fairfax/Neilsen poll, reports Phillip Coorey in The SMH. Its results found that 54% “believe asylum seekers arriving by boat should be allowed to land in Australia to be assessed”, writes Coorey. Meanwhile, 25% say boat arrivals should be processed offshore, 16% believe boats should be “sent back” and 4% were uncertain. The phone poll was taken just last week, so well after the High Court’s decision.
34 thoughts on “Malaysia deal not sunk yet”
guytaur
September 12, 2011 at 12:02 pmWell now we will see how it goes in Parliament. Caucus has approved a new off shore policy.
Hugh (Charlie) McColl
September 12, 2011 at 12:08 pmClearly Guytaur has not read the High Court decision and therefore is unaware of the actual content of it. The Malaysian Solution did not fail because Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Convention (or because Australia is). It failed because the wording of the Australian legislation requires that the Minister must be able to guarantee certain outcomes in Malaysia which he is clearly unable to do – although he might be able to in Nauru because under that system the Australian government was doing all the administration in Nauru. It would seem that what the government needs to do is change the legislation so that the Minister does not need to guarantee those certain outcomes. It may not be pretty but then neither is mandatory detention, undeclared war, minority government or leadership by factional grace and favour.
guytaur
September 12, 2011 at 12:11 pmHugh.
Tony Abbott disagrees with you. He is trumpeting Nauru as meeting standards because it has started the signing process of the UN Human Rights Treaty.
TheTruthHurts
September 12, 2011 at 12:12 pm[“What was the figure for Nauru again?”]
Sure happy to supply the FACTS. You remember FACTS don’t you?
smh.com.au/news/national/pacific-solution-cost-1b/2007/08/24/1187462523594.html
$1 Billion Dollars over 5 Years
The Labor Governments budget estimates for spending on boatpeople currently are around $1 Billion a YEAR.
So the Pacific Solution was 5 times cheaper than their current solution.
You see Guytaur sometimes the FACTS are inconvenient to your argument. Only in the world of lefti-nomics does having 7000 Boat arrivals a year end up being cheaper then 60, even when processing onshore. More doesn’t equal less.
The left will only talk about a “per person cost” not total costs(which is the important one) because onshore processing is DAMN expensive because it’s a pull factor for more and more and more and more boatpeople. You reduce costs by stopping the boats, not encouraging them.
Joanna
September 12, 2011 at 12:17 pmThere’s a very good article in Eureka Street on the comparative ethics of “the Malaysia solution” http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=28066
This is a case I think where the ethical consequences of bad policy will have a greater consequence than the legal ones. If the Labor Party does a deal with the Liberals on this one there will be no point in voting for them ever again.
guytaur
September 12, 2011 at 12:42 pmTTH
Prove and I mean prove beyond reasonable doubt that you can stop the boats and I might give you credence.
I think it is cheaper to work with Indonesia and Malaysia to stop the boats at source. Indeed the failed Gillard policy on Malaysia proved my point. Malaysian refugees stopped going for boats hoping instead for a place to Australia.
So as others have pointed out. Let’s accept them as determined by the UN direct from camps.
Let’s chase up the people smugglers in conjunction with Indonesia and Malaysia. This includes persuading those two Sovereign nations to sentence the guilty with sentences like that meted out to drug smugglers
Processing off shore is more expensive. Do not confuse the two issues.
guytaur
September 12, 2011 at 12:49 pmSo now the question is what is Tony Abbott going to do?
Support the government and off shore processing or support the Greens and on shore processing.?
A rare black and white choice in politics.
TheTruthHurts
September 12, 2011 at 12:56 pm[“So now the question is what is Tony Abbott going to do?
Support the government and off shore processing or support the Greens and on shore processing.?”]
Easy, agree with the legislation with the requirement that the 3rd country is a UNHCR signatory.
The perfect wedge, afterall this has been the longstanding excuse from Labor on why they couldn’t send boaties to Nauru.
geomac
September 12, 2011 at 12:56 pmThe PM could but looks unlikely to have onshore treatment for asylum seekers. If Labor can amend the law to by pass or negate the courts it will need the liberals and nationals to get it through. Abbott wants Malaysia out but Nauru in which doesn,t make any practical sense for this government or any future government.
If it was just a matter of playing hard instead of dealing with human lives I would opt for onshore treatment just so that if Abbott wins government it is he who has to amend the laws. Then it is the coalition that further trashes our already tarnished observance of the UN convention. Onshore would be cheaper and one would hope higher in standards . No denying access or photos for the media like Howard and Reith who made out refugees to be ghostly figures not really humans.
I didn,t think the liberals could come with anyone as creepy as Reith or Morrison but Bernardi really tops them all. That he is Abbotts secretary says a lot about standards in the opposition. Even Santamaria would be repulsed by Bernardi.
guytaur
September 12, 2011 at 1:11 pmAgree re Bernadi. Even a strong Coalition supporter commentator on Insiders made the same point. She said the faster Arthur Sinodis is and Bernadi is out the better.