Move to stop bid to relax tough law on migrants

AUSTRALIA’S prime minister and top colleagues campaigned at the weekend to block a bid to allow asylum seekers in offshore camps to come to Australia for medical treatment, saying tough rules on migrants should not be eased.

Under Australia’s immigration policy, asylum seekers intercepted at sea are sent to camps in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Nauru, and they cannot set foot in Australia, even if they are found to be refugees.

Opponents of the policy have introduced a bill to amend the Migration Act to enable the temporary transfer of “transitory persons” from PNG or Nauru to Australia for medical assessment.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has voiced its support for the bill, but the government fears it would open a loophole that asylum-seekers could exploit.

“We cannot have Australia’s borders determined by panels of medical professionals,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters on Saturday.

Defence Minister Christopher Pyne and Immigration Minister David Coleman also voiced their opposition.

Pyne said the government would be forced to reopen a detention centre on Christmas Island if the bill passed, as almost all the 1000 asylum-seekers in PNG and Nauru would come to Australia for medical assessment.

“They’ll be coming to Australia one way or the other saying that they have a need because of ill-health,” Pyne said on television yesterday.

Coleman said the change would bring a return of the days when thousands of asylum-seekers travelled to Indonesia and then paid smugglers to take them to Australia by boat.

“We are talking about a catastrophic failure under the previous government where 1200 people drowned at sea, where 50 000 people arrived and 8 000 children were forcibly placed in detention,” he told Sky News.

AMA president Tony Bartone said the government should set up “appropriate mechanisms” to allow the temporary transfer to Australia “for those asylum seekers in need of urgent care”.

The government is battling to improve its popularity ahead of a general election in May. | Reuters