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Aus to scrap refugee policy
10/12/2007 11:12 - (SA)
Sydney - Australia's new government, making its second big policy shift in just a week in power, on Monday began to scrap a controversial scheme which sent refugees to remote foreign islands for processing.
The move came exactly a week after centre-left Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change in his first official act after ousting John Howard's conservative government in elections.
The initial step in dismantling the "Pacific Solution" would be to grant refugee status to seven men from Myanmar held on the island of Nauru for more than a year, Immigration Minister Chris Evans told national radio.
"I'm hopeful that those Burmese will be returned in the next week or two in time for Christmas," he said.
"There's no reason why they shouldn't be processed quickly. In fact in my view they should have been processed some time ago, but we're keen to resolve their issues."
The Myanmar refugees would be settled in the Queensland state capital of Brisbane, Evans said.
The government also hoped to quickly resolve the asylum claims of about 80 Sri Lankans held on Nauru, he added.
Nauru, a tiny and impoverished nation paid by Australia to house detainees, became a focus of global attention in 2001 when a boat-load of Afghan refugees was offloaded there.
The detention centre hit worldwide headlines again in early 2004 when a number of detainees staged a hunger strike and sewed up their lips in protest at their incarceration.
- AFP
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