- Swan on defensive over asylum seeker plan
- $54,000 for each refugee from Malaysia
- Cost could top $800m, says Opposition
DEPUTY Prime Minister Wayne Swan has rejected suggestions a deal with Malaysia to swap asylum seekers for processed refugees is Labor's version of the so-called Pacific Solution.
"I don't think it looks anything like that at all," he said in Canberra today.
It was also revealed today that children and ill asylum seekers could be among those sent to Malaysia under Prime Minister Julia Gillard's new refugee swap deal.
"If you get on a boat then the risk you run is that you end up in Malaysia, and I'm not going to put any conditions or caveats on that," she said.
"If you get on a boat then the risk you run is that you end up in Malaysia, and I'm not going to put any conditions or caveats on that," she said.
Taxpayers will fork out more than $50,000 for every refugee the Federal Government plans to bring to Australia from Malaysia under its new plan to stop illegal boat arrivals.
But they will have to pay more than $90,000 for every asylum seeker the Government now rejects.
The financial burden of the Gillard Government's $292 million "Malaysian Solution" will not be the only Immigration blowout in tomorrow's federal Budget.
Log on for live reports on the Budget tomorrow night
The deal has been criticised by the opposition and refugee and human rights groups.
Mr Swan said the arrangement with Malaysia would include involvement by the United Nations refugee agency, something not part of the Howard government's Pacific Solution.
He insisted the deal was a regional solution within the Bali framework on tackling people smuggling.
"That allows for agreements between countries and it also means that we are having direct involvement from the United Nations in this process.
"Nothing would contrast more than that with the previous approach of the previous government."
Refugee Action Collective spokeswoman Sue Bolton said the boat arrivals would still continue unless the Government committed to accepting more refugees from Malaysia.
“I just don’t think this will stop the boats,” she said.
“The only way this will stop the boats will be by Australia taking more refugees stranded in Malaysia.”
The costs of processing asylum seekers could be reduced, Ms Bolton said, by allowing some low-risk applicants to live within the community while they are assessed rather than mandatory detention.
The Government is facing a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars to pay in part for a 1000 per cent increase in immigration staff employed to deal with boat arrivals in the past 18 months.
Department of Immigration figures reveal the number of processing staff in detention facilities to deal with boat arrivals has risen from 71 in 2009 to a staggering 709.
The combined cost of the new Malaysian policy, increased staff numbers to deal with cases and the expansion of detention facilities could see the Immigration budget blow out by more than $800 million, claimed the Opposition.
"Labor's open borders and rolling detention crisis is consuming staff and resources at an insatiable rate, with taxpayers forced to write a blank cheque to underwrite the Government's failure," said Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison.
Australia is using Prime Minister Julia Gillard to spearhead an international advertising blitz with the slogan "don't do it", telling people smugglers and passengers in Indonesia, Afghanistan and Pakistan about its new plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia, where there are 93,000 people already in the queue.
The PM's warning - "the truth is if you spend your money, you get on a boat, you risk your life, you don't get to stay, you go to Malaysia, and you go to the back of the queue" - has been translated into Farsi, Dari, Pashto, Arabic and Bahasa Indonesian, and already broadcast.
It is likely asylum seekers arriving by boat will still go to Christmas Island, but they will be kept separate from other people in detention.
The Government plans to fly them directly to Malaysia as quickly as possible, probably on special charter flights.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the 4000 people Australia would take from Malaysia would be spread out to 1000 a year.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott continued to call on the Government to strike a deal to send people to Nauru.
"Sending people to Malaysia means we get five back for every one we send. Nauru doesn't have any to send back - that's the point," he told The Bolt Report on Channel 10.
Greens leader Bob Brown said it was a "dog's breakfast of a refugee policy" and it was cruel to send people to Malaysia where "the cane is in frequent use".
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/taxpayers-to-pay-54000-for-every-refugee-brought-to-australia-under-malaysian-solution/story-e6frfkvr-1226052198877#ixzz1LrIZRseX
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