Australia shuts door on asylum-seekers in Indonesia
Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison Wednesday said he was "taking the sugar off the table" in announcing that Canberra was slamming the door on UN-registered asylum-seekers in Indonesia.
Morrison said that from July next year, asylum-seekers officially recognised by the United Nations refugee agency in Jakarta would no longer be eligible for resettlement in Australia.
The move, he said, was part of the government's work to "strip people-smugglers of a product to sell to vulnerable men, women and children" and stop Indonesia being used as a transit lounge.
"We're taking the sugar off the table. That's what we're doing," he told ABC radio.
"We’re trying to stop people thinking that it's OK to come into Indonesia and use that as a waiting ground to get to Australia."
The giant northern neighbour is not a refugee generating country, but has become a key magnet for others seeking to reach Australia, often through treacherous boat journeys that have left hundreds dead.
Since the government came to power last year, its hardline immigration policy -- to deny asylum-seekers arriving by boat resettlement in Australia and instead send them to camps in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific state of Nauru -- has halted the flow.
The move to shut the door on even those registered with the UNHCR refugee agency in Indonesia is the next step, Morrison said.
"While nine of 10 months of 2014 have passed without a successful people-smuggling venture to Australia, we know smugglers continue to encourage asylum-seekers to travel illegally to Indonesia for the purpose of seeking resettlement in Australia," he said.
"These changes should reduce the movement of asylum-seekers to Indonesia and encourage them to seek resettlement in or from countries of first asylum." ...
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