By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

CANBERRA, Australia — Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Sunday that the decision to send asylum-seekers to detention centers on Pacific Islands rather than letting them on Australian soil could result in saved lives.

Australian leaders announced last week that they plan to reopen the camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, a move critics called regressive.  The asylum-seekers would remain in the detention centers while their immigration cases are processed.

“Yes, this is a tough policy,” Gillard told Sky News.  “I understand for many people that it’s hard for them, that it’s emotionally hard for them.”

Gillard said the move could result in preventing lives from being lost at sea.  According to a report released last week by a former Australian Defense Force chief, nearly 1,000 asylum-seekers have drowned in the waters between Indonesia and Australia in the last decade.  More than 60 percent of them have drowned in the last three years.  These numbers helped prompt the policy change.

“We stood on a policy of not having offshore processing, but we’re seeing large numbers of people losing their lives at sea because they are enticed by people smugglers,” Gillard told Sky News, admitting that she compromised her position “in the nation’s interest.”

“We’ve got to be very clear with asylum-seekers that they will get no advantage by having paid a people smuggler,” she added.  Gillard said people could wait in the island camps for “an extended period of time,” but she would not say how long that might be.

But many have expressed concerns about the change, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.  Navi Pillay said there is no evidence the effort would dissuade asylum seekers and could even lead to human rights violations.

“[Australian leaders must] break an ingrained political habit of demonizing migrants and asylum-seekers,” he said.

In fact, people smugglers have already adopted a new effort to counter Australia’s changed policy.  The West Australian reported that smugglers are telling asylum-seekers that Nauru is “just another Christmas Island,” in reference to Nauru being just a different stop on the path to be resettled in Australia.

The West Australian said Nauru and Manus Island processed 1,637 people between 2001 and 2008, the vast majority of whom were resettled in Australia or New Zealand.

Since Parliament approved the policy change last week, 10 boats of asylum-seekers have arrived.  These are just the latest in what has been a record year of immigrants attempting to reach Australia, mostly from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, and Iraq.  The centers at Manus and Nauru can hold up to 600 and 1,500 people, respectively.

For its part, Nauru has indicated it wants to exert some level of control over the process.  According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the island country’s foreign minister, Kieren Keke, told the Sunday Age that “his country would have ‘no problem’ with giving journalists access to report the stories and conditions of asylum seekers in its care who wanted to speak publicly.”

For further information, please see:

News.com.au — Australia out of Reach for Resettled Refugees — 21 August 2012

The West Australian — People Smugglers Using New Sales Pitch — 21 August 2012

Bloomberg Businessweek — Gillard Says Australia Asylum Policy Change in National Interest — 19 August 2012

The Daily News — Australia Defends ‘Tough’ Asylum-Seeker Policy — 19 August 2012

The Sydney Morning Herald — Nauru Demands Rights, Freedom for Asylum Seekers — 19 August 2012