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Yuko Narushima IMMIGRATION CORRESPONDENT - November 30, 2010 - The Sydney Morning Herald
THE government is taking its Timor solution to a meeting with the top United Nations official on refugees.
The Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, is scheduled to meet the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, in Geneva in December.
It will be Mr Bowen's first chance to speak to Mr Guterres directly about Labor's plan to process Australia-bound asylum seekers in East Timor.
So far the UN has been lukewarm on the idea, saying regional co-operation had to complement national procedures and aim to protect refugees.
Yesterday the opposition spokesman for immigration, Scott Morrison, was sceptical of what the meeting would achieve.
''These meetings will be used to continue to try to breath political life into a proposal which is clearly going nowhere,'' Mr Morrison said.
''The proposal did not even rank in Julia Gillard's 2011 priorities so it is dropping off the radar. I don't expect any great result from that except the issue of a press release from the minister saying that he met with the UNHCR to keep the dream alive.''
Mr Morrison is due to address the Lowy Institute today to outline the opposition's immigration priorities.
Australia's focus should be on repatriation of asylum seekers to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to support countries of first asylum to prevent onward travel to Australia, he said.
In the Asia-Pacific region, countries of first asylum include Indonesia and Malaysia, where asylum seekers go before attempting Australia.
''The key challenge is to thwart secondary movements and that is something that the regional processing centre will only encourage, not discourage and that's our biggest problem with it,'' Mr Morrison said.
The official Greens policy on any regional processing centre is to host it in Australia.
Mr Bowen's spokesman yesterday confirmed a meeting would take place soon after Mr Guterres's annual forum on global protection challenges, ending in Geneva on December 9.
''The main purpose of this meeting will be a discussion on the regional protection framework,'' the spokesman said.
Other likely discussion topics are Australia's resettlement program and the source countries of asylum seekers.
A Canberra spokesman for the UNHCR said it ''welcomed dialogue with Australia and all states in the region on co-operative approaches to refugees in the region''.
The Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, Erika Feller, has previously said the key to successful regional arrangements were to share burdens and responsibilities across affected states.
Australia has received close to 6000 asylum seekers on more than 120 boats this year.
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Yuko Narushima IMMIGRATION CORRESPONDENT - November 30, 2010 - The Sydney Morning Herald
THE government is taking its Timor solution to a meeting with the top United Nations official on refugees.
The Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, is scheduled to meet the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, in Geneva in December.
It will be Mr Bowen's first chance to speak to Mr Guterres directly about Labor's plan to process Australia-bound asylum seekers in East Timor.
So far the UN has been lukewarm on the idea, saying regional co-operation had to complement national procedures and aim to protect refugees.
Yesterday the opposition spokesman for immigration, Scott Morrison, was sceptical of what the meeting would achieve.
''These meetings will be used to continue to try to breath political life into a proposal which is clearly going nowhere,'' Mr Morrison said.
''The proposal did not even rank in Julia Gillard's 2011 priorities so it is dropping off the radar. I don't expect any great result from that except the issue of a press release from the minister saying that he met with the UNHCR to keep the dream alive.''
Mr Morrison is due to address the Lowy Institute today to outline the opposition's immigration priorities.
Australia's focus should be on repatriation of asylum seekers to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to support countries of first asylum to prevent onward travel to Australia, he said.
In the Asia-Pacific region, countries of first asylum include Indonesia and Malaysia, where asylum seekers go before attempting Australia.
''The key challenge is to thwart secondary movements and that is something that the regional processing centre will only encourage, not discourage and that's our biggest problem with it,'' Mr Morrison said.
The official Greens policy on any regional processing centre is to host it in Australia.
Mr Bowen's spokesman yesterday confirmed a meeting would take place soon after Mr Guterres's annual forum on global protection challenges, ending in Geneva on December 9.
''The main purpose of this meeting will be a discussion on the regional protection framework,'' the spokesman said.
Other likely discussion topics are Australia's resettlement program and the source countries of asylum seekers.
A Canberra spokesman for the UNHCR said it ''welcomed dialogue with Australia and all states in the region on co-operative approaches to refugees in the region''.
The Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, Erika Feller, has previously said the key to successful regional arrangements were to share burdens and responsibilities across affected states.
Australia has received close to 6000 asylum seekers on more than 120 boats this year.
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