New Zealand and PNG Could Do Deal On Refugees: Peter Dutton
Australia should not stand in the way of New Zealand resettling refugees from the offshore detention centre on Manus Island, Labor leader Bill Shorten has said.
The comments come after immigration minister, Peter Dutton, accepted that New Zealand and Papua New Guinea could do a bilateral deal to resettle people from the regional processing centre but warned that any such deal would have consequences for the countries’ diplomatic relationship with Australia.
New Zealand has reiterated its offer to take 150 refugees from Australia’s offshore detention centres during a two week-long standoff as people refuse to leave the nowclosed Manus Island centre. Labor has urged the Coalition government to consider the offer but Malcolm Turnbull has said it would not do so until the United States resettlement deal is complete.
Yesterday he told Melbourne radio
3AW “it’s a possibility that could happen in the future but it is not ... a near-term prospect at all”. Asked at a press conference in Adelaide about the possibility the refugees could settle in New Zealand, Mr Shorten said: “If New Zealand wants to take the people from Manus Island, Australia shouldn’t get in the way.”
“They should be allowed to go. It’s a solution. I don’t know why Australia wants to get in the way.” On Thursday Mr Dutton was asked about a possible bilateral deal between New Zealand and Papua New Guinea and told Sky News: “That’s an issue between those two countries. Any sovereign state can enter into bilateral arrangements. “They would have to think about other equities within the respective relationships,” he said. “They would have to think about their relationship with Australia, or what impact that would have.”
New Zealand has reiterated its offer to take 150 refugees from Australia’s offshore detention centres...