“Prime Minister Turnbull says world leaders should look to Australia’s border control policies for inspiration, yet he fails to explain that Australia’s definition of “border control” equates to the Government building a deliberate system of cruel treatment for refugees, and flouting worldwide law”.
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The Prime Minister made the comments as he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in ny, aimed to addressing the 65.3 million people displaced internationally.
Malcolm Turnbull says this support will help displaced people return home as quickly as possible.
“Let’s be clear about this, very little of what the Australian government has announced is new”, Amnesty refugee campaigner Ming Yu Hah said.
Speaking at the conference, Turnbull encouraged other member states of the United Nations to follow Australia’s example when it came to deterring migrants through strict border security.
“We have a proud history of taking in refugees from some of the most troubled parts of the world and then integrating them into Australian society”.
Mr Dutton has described offshore processing, Temporary Protection Visas and boat turnbacks as “the trifecta of success in securing our borders”.
In addition, hundreds of people remain in immigration detention: 1,346 on mainland Australia, 242 on Christmas Island and 1,244 across Nauru and Manus Island.
Asked if Australia regretted the air strike, which shattered the fragile ceasefire in Syria, Foreign Affairs minister Julie Bishop would only say: “There’s an investigation underway and we’re participating in the investigation”.
Mr Dutton, speaking on ABC’s Insiders program, suggested that Nauru and Manus could be favourably measured against camps such as Zaatari in Jordan where an estimated 80,000 Syrian refugees are living.
The 35 per cent includes the one-off Syrian batch.
No timeframe for the overall resettlement has been made public.
Australia grants refugee visas to just under 14,000 people each year under various worldwide agreements.
The Department agreed to a Transfield contract, despite its estimate blowing out by more than $1.1 billion.
It stated that shutting down offshore centres would save almost $2 billion over the next four years – but only if all other elements of the policy framework remained the same.
“Australia’s approach is to be both principled and pragmatic”.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.
On Wednesday Labor frontbencher Richard Marles, formerly immigration spokesman, said the boosted humanitarian funding was welcome but inadequate and the refugee intake commitment was “very hollow indeed”.
“In terms of the humanitarian intake, I think everyone in the sector would be very surprised to learn that when the announcement was made back in 2014, that the humanitarian intake would go up to 18,750, that it wasn’t meant to be permanent at that point in time”.
“And we would not have been able to commit to welcoming 12,000 additional Syrian and Iraqi refugees, on top of this”.
“Nauru invites other countries to assist in finding durable resettlement solutions for our refugees”, he said.
“But you can not do that and, frankly, public opinion will not accept a generous humanitarian program … unless the government is seen to be in command of its borders”.
“You’ve seen around the world, the way in which uncontrolled migration flows start to destabilise countries and undermine support for migration”.
That logic has condemned more than 2000 people to three years of misery in limbo, purely to present a message of deterrence to would-be arrivals.
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Mr Turnbull, and his tough Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton who is also on NY for the talks, attracted Ms Hanson’s full support on Monday.
