Australia defends offshore refugee plan

In a letter to Canberra, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres said it was not clear to his agency that the transfer of boatpeople to PNG was “fully appropriate.”

It was the UNHCR's assessment that PNG “does not have the legal safeguards nor the competence or capacity to shoulder alone the responsibility of protecting and processing asylum-seekers transferred by Australia,” he wrote.

But a spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said asylum-seekers were set to arrive on PNG's Manus Island within weeks.

“We have consulted with and tabled correspondence by the UNHCR — and as always, we take on board issues they have raised,” the spokesman said.

“We continue to work with the PNG government on implementation and expect the first transfers ... occurring in coming weeks,” he added.

Australia announced a tough new policy for boatpeople in August under which they will be sent to the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru or Manus Island in PNG while their claims for refugee status are assessed.

The policy is designed to deter people from making the dangerous boat journey to Australia after scores of deaths en route, but has so far failed to stem the record flow of arrivals this year.

More than 4,000 boatpeople have turned up since the policy was announced, with vessels arriving most days, the last bringing 53 people on Friday.

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