subject: Australia Pursues New Offshore Center For Refugees [print this page] Australia Pursues New Offshore Center For Refugees
One of the biggest issues that the Australian migration department has been dealing with is handling refugees. With the numbers of asylum seekers in the country continually increasing, many groups are concerned that Australia may not be able to handle all of them. And with the recent events that has happened in the past few months, the Australian government is hard pressed to deal with the situation.
Thus, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has been trying to find out the best solution to the problems. However, as it turns out, this one is not that easy, as there are a lot of concerns that needs to be taken cared of.
One of the solutions that the DIAC had been contemplating in the establishment of a regional processing center for arriving refugees. The center is intended to augment the other centers currently being used by the department. It is also intended to by used as jump off point for the redistribution of the refugees to the countries that are willing to accept them.
The plan to establish a new regional refugee processing center is actually not a new one. It was first proposed back in 2007 by the administration of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The initial country chosen to house the would be immigration center was East Timor. However, while there were initial talks, the plan did not materialize. The idea of an overseas immigration center was eventually revisited by current Prime Minister Julia Gillard as a solution to the present refugee situation. Gillard announced her plan during her bid for reelection in the recently concluded Federal Elections in the country.
This time around, East Timor is one of the countries being considered as the site of the new offshore center. The Australian government initially approach its East Timorese counterparts in 2009 for the matter. However, the initial proposals were also turned down. Now after a new round of meetings, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said that the prospect of establishing a processing center for refugees in the region have started to look good. He also added that Indonesia has also shown its support for the center.
However, some groups are still not convinced about the benefits of an offshore processing center. They argued that even if this one does indeed push through, this will still not be a long term solution to the refugee issue. They also point out that even if the new center is able to relieve the congestion in the other centers, it will eventually end up in the same situation in the long run. Thus, they are clamoring for the government to put up more effort in speeding the refugee processing instead.
