Australian PM ‘not making stuff up’ on refugee policy

SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she would not be “making stuff up” on how long refugees will spend on remote Pacific islands under a tough new policy designed to deter boatpeople.

The conservative opposition has said those who make the dangerous journey by boat to Australia could spend up to five years on the tiny Pacific state of Nauru, or Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, before being resettled.

But Gillard refused to put a timeframe on the process, saying it would be negotiated with the United Nations to ensure that refugees gained “no advantage” by bypassing normal procedures and jumping on a boat.

“We’re not making stuff up as we go along,” she said in Canberra.

“The aim here is to define what is the period of time someone would have waited if they had not moved, but had stayed where they were for processing by the United Nation High Commission for Refugees.”

An influx of more than 12,000 boatpeople have arrived in Australia in 2012, more than 4,600 since the government announced the new policy of sending refugees to Nauru and Manus Island in mid-August.

That number easily overwhelms capacity at the spartan centres on the two Pacific islands, which combined can only hold about 2,100.

The opposition, which is on track to win elections next year according to opinion polls, has called on the government to indicate how long the boatpeople can expect to spend offshore before being resettled in Australia. “The standard waiting time based on my visits through the region, whetherit is in Indonesia or Malaysia, is around about five years in Malaysia,” opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison told the ABC.

“The government needs to stop tying itself in knots about its language over these things. If it is serious about no advantage then they should say what it means.”