| Rudd Government Ends ‘Pacific Solution’ |
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The Jesuit Refugee Service Australia congratulates the Rudd government on their decision to dismantle the Howard Government’s offshore processing regime, known as the ‘Pacific Solution’. JRS welcomes this move as a positive first step in ending the costly and destructive Pacific Solution. Immigration Minister Chris Evans has promised to close immigration facilities on Nauru and Manus Island (Papua New Guinea). The Minister has further undertaken to quickly resolve the cases of 80 Tamils from Sri Lanka still left on Nauru. JRS hopes that the closure of detention facilities on Nauru and Manus Island will mark the end of Australia’s disastrous experiment with the offshore processing of asylum seekers. Asylum seekers were geographically isolated and removed from the purview of Australian courts and Australian law. This resulted in inferior decision making processes, a lack of public scrutiny and accountability and periods in detention of many months, and sometimes years, before cases were finalised. While the intention was to find other nations to accept responsibility for resettlement, almost all the refugees processed through the Pacific Solution ended up in Australia. The Federal Government has promised to instead process asylum seekers intercepted at sea on Christmas Island. While a part of Australian territory, Christmas Island has been excised from the operation of the Migration Act, thereby limiting access to Australian refugee status determination and review processes. Access to independent legal assistance, coupled with options for administrative and judicial review, would go some way towards improving the fairness and effectiveness of decision making on Christmas Island. This decision indicates a willingness by the newly elected Rudd government to implement reasonable, flexible and compassionate refugee policies. JRS applauds this new direction and hopes that it will continue. |
