Criticism of PNG arrangements
ALHR, with other lawyers, have been quoted in a Lawyers Weekly article “Lawyers question legality of PNG asylum plan”. Lawyers’ Weekly interviewed ALHR’s President in writing their article. The article’s concluding paragraphs are extracted below.
Australia has promised to ‘provide support, through a service provider, to any refugees who are resettled in PNG’, but Southalan warned this could lead to problems among two different refugee groups in the country: ‘one with more facilities and rights than the other’.
‘The Refugee Convention is about giving the broadest degree of protection and rights to asylum seekers and implementing that in good faith,” he said, adding that Australia’s sub-contracting its responsibility to refugees to a local developing nation, tied up with the idea of foreign aid, was shameful.
http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/news/lawyers-question-legality-of-png-asylum-plan