Page 20 - IB October 2021

Refugee Processing Refugee Processing

REFUGEE PROCESSING IN PNG TO CLOSE

NAURU TO ENDURE

By Nic Maclellan refuses asylum seekers the right to land in Australia by boat –
will continue indefinitely.
Australia and Papua New Guinea have announced the
closure of Canberra’s offshore refugee processing program by PNG steps away
the end of this year, leaving responsibility for the remaining On 6 October, Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen
asylum seekers and refugees to Port Moresby. At the same Andrews and PNG immigration minister Westly Nukundj an-
time, Nauru will now take on “enduring” responsibility for nounced the Australian Government regional processing con-
Australia’s offshore program. tracts in Papua New Guinea will cease on 31 December 2021
The decision comes twenty years after the so-called “Pacific and will not be renewed:
Solution” was first established. During the 2001 Tampa crisis, “From 1 January 2022, PNG Government will assume full
Prime Minister John Howard desperately sought locations in management of regional processing services in PNG and full
the Pacific to establish offshore refugee processing centres. responsibility for those who remain.”
Fiji, Tuvalu, Palau, and Kiribati were approached by Australian In 2016, PNG’s Supreme Court found that the detention of
diplomats, but all refused to play along. Even Timor-Leste refugees on Manus Island was illegal under the PNG Consti-
was considered as a site for camps, even though the islands tution. By late 2019, most asylum seekers refused refugee
were not yet independent and still recovering from Indonesian status, as well as refugees who couldn’t be resettled in third
human rights atrocities and destruction of infrastructure just countries, had been relocated to Port Moresby.
two years before. Now, with 88 refugees and 36 asylum seekers still in Papua
Only two countries finally agreed – both former Australian New Guinea under the Australian program, the PNG govern-
dependencies – and camps were established on Nauru and on ment will provide a permanent migration pathway for those
Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, allowing Australia to keep wishing to remain. This will include access to citizenship,
asylum seekers arriving by boat away from its shores. long-term support, settlement packages and family reunifica-
I wrote my first report on Australia’s Pacific Solution in tion. Papua New Guinea will also provide support to people
2001. That year, the first in a series of Memorandums of Un- temporarily in Port Moresby awaiting movement to a third
derstanding (MOUs) between Australia and Papua New Guinea country.
said refugees would leave in six months “or as short a time as The deal has angered church and community groups who
is reasonably necessary.” Now, twenty years on and five years have long provided pastoral care to the isolated refugees.
after the PNG Supreme Court declared the program illegal, Father Giorgio Licini from the PNG Catholic Bishops Confer-
both countries are admitting defeat and Canberra is dumping ence told the ABC that Papua New Guinea was not set up to
the problem on its northern neighbour. care for refugees and “doesn’t have a structure to resettle
These changes come at a time when the PNG and Nauru’s refugees. It is really unfortunate that Australia came up with
economies have been battered by debt and disruption during this idea and something should be done about it.”
the COVID-19 pandemic. They also follow the withdrawal of Many of the remaining asylum seekers cannot return to
Western forces from Afghanistan, with the likelihood that home countries like Iran or Afghanistan. Under the new agree-
more desperate people will seek asylum in the region after ment, Australia will now “support anyone subject to regional
fleeing from the Taliban. Operation Sovereign Borders – which processing arrangements in Papua New Guinea who wishes to

20 Islands Business, October 2021