Last week, we reported on controversies surrounding Australia's tough policies on boat people; now, there's a new one. Passengers who paid a crew of smugglers to take them to New Zealand say their boat was stopped by an Australian Naval vessel, and each crew member received five thousand dollars cash to take them back to Indonesia. Details, from Neal Conan, in today’s Pacific News Minute.
The allegations emerged after a boat carrying 65 refugees from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka ran aground on an Indonesian reef. Officials from the United Nations-High Commission for Refugees and several reporters say many of the migrants saw the money change hands.
At first Australian government officials denied the allegations, then cited national security and refused to answer questions. Prime Minister Tony Abbott declined to confirm or deny the charges, but then added “What we do is stop the boats by hook or by crook. We've done the right thing." he added, "We've done the moral thing, the decent thing. We've stopped the boats by doing whatever is necessary within the law."
Critics fired back, that bribes to smugglers might well encourage more smuggling, and that paying someone to take people somewhere they don't want to go fits the definition of human trafficking. After Indonesia raised objections, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Australia wouldn't have to stop asylum boats if Indonesia secured its borders, which drew angry reactions from Jakarta.
The Abbott government won election on a promise to stop the boats and the hard line policy remains largely popular in Australia, even among harsh criticism of conditions for refugees at camps on Manus Atoll in Papua New Guinea and in the island nation of Nauru.