FED:Malaysia deal not new Pacific Solution: PM

AAP General News (Australia)
08-23-2011
FED:Malaysia deal not new Pacific Solution: PM

CANBERRA, Aug 23 AAP - Prime Minister Julia Gillard says Labor's asylum-seeker deals
with Malaysia and Papua New Guinea are not the same as John Howard's Pacific Solution.

Former prime minister Mr Howard reached agreements with Nauru and PNG to process asylum
seekers offshore and stop people-smuggling.

Ms Gillard in 2007 joined refugee and human rights advocates in criticising the so-called
Pacific Solution as inhumane, and vowed to shut down the Nauru and PNG Manus Island facilities.

But the Gillard government has now reached an agreement with the PNG government to
restart processing on Manus Island.

A High Court challenge against the Gillard government's Malaysian deal continues in
Canberra on Tuesday.

Ms Gillard said her government's approach to asylum-seeker processing was markedly
different to Mr Howard's approach.

"That was strictly a model that Australia engaged in as a one-out decision under a
great deal of pressure with the Tampa (freighter which rescued 438 Afghans in 2001),"

she told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

Instead the present government had worked regionally within the Bali framework.

"We will have a bilateral arrangement with PNG now, but we will stay engaged with the
region on the question of a regional assessment centre," Ms Gillard said.

"So we've taken a regional approach because we've always understood this is an issue
for our whole region."

AAP pjo/rl/jsh

KEYWORD: BOAT

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