AUSTRALIA DECLARES REWARD UP TO $ 180,000 FOR TIP OFF ON PEOPLE SMUGGLERS AND REFUGEE ARRIVING ILLEGALLY THROUGH BOATS WOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO ENTER OR BEING RESETTLE IN AUSTRALIA BUT WILL BE PACKED OFF TO POVERTY STRICKEN PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1st August 2013 Australia declares reward for tip-offs on people-smugglers SYDNEY Australia on Sunday announced cash rewards for tip-offs on people-smugglers, as it defended its new hardline policy of resettling asylum-seekers in Papua New Guinea following riots in its Nauru processing centre. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Friday announced that refugees arriving on unauthorised boats would have no chance of being resettled in Australia in a bid to stop the rush of asylum-seekers arriving by sea. Instead they will be sent to poverty-stricken Papua New Guinea. Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said on Sunday that Australian Federal Police would pay rewards of up to $180,000 for information leading to the conviction of people-smugglers. “These people are peddling in misery and death. We need to shut this market down. That’s why we are putting a bounty on their heads,” Clare said. “We have taken the product they are selling off the shelves, we also need to lock these people up.” Defending the new hardline stance, Immigration Minister Tony Burke said if it stopped people risking their lives on boats it could make a “massive difference”. “There is nothing compassionate in a policy where you see people drowned at sea,” he said. “There is nothing compassionate in some people waiting in camps for more than a decade.” Burke said PNG was a democracy and had signed the United Nations convention on refugees. “Let’s make clear, the commitment under the convention is not for people to be able to move to a country with a particular average income,” he said
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 02:03:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015