Trafficking conference commences in Bali
Updated
The issue of people smuggling and how to combat it as it becomes more and more a part of organised crime is the subject of a gathering of representatives from around 40 countries in Indonesia's Bali over the next couple of days.
Cross-border authorities are having to continually review the way they deal with people smuggling, and this week's meeting is the latest in attempts to develop a more coordinated approach to fighting the crime.
Presenter: Michael Cavanagh
Speaker: Senator Chris Evans, Australia's Immigration Minister; Bob Debus, Australia's Home Affairs Minister
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CAVANAGH: The gathering comes as Australian officials are processing a number of asylum seekers who have arrived in Australia hoping to be allowed to stay - five boats have managed to make it this year - the last three in the space of a week.
Immigration Minister Senator Chris Evans is one of three Australian government ministers attending the conference aimed at further strengthening regional cooperation in fighting the crime.
EVANS: Their local police are cooperating with Australian authorities in trying to prevent departures. They are have been a large number of successful interruptions. While we have been dealing with them the last few years there is a change in tactics, which has required us to divert more resources and adopt some different approaches. But Indonesian cooperation has been very good.
CAVANAGH: The Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus who is also attending the Bali conference says the recent arrival of asylum seekers wanting to remain in Australia needs to be looked at in perspective.
DEBUS: We know that the numbers of boats that are launched, the number of attempts that there are at people smuggling is most affected by what my colleagues have been referring to as push back this. If you have more difficulty in the circumstances of the population of Sri Lanka or Afghanistan or Pakistan, which is what we have, then you must expect that there will be within a relatively short time more attempts by people to reach a country of preferred destination like Australia. I emphasis again that the numbers of people attempting to arrive by boat in Australia is still very small by international standards and it's very small even by our own historical standards. We must be concerned, we will not diminish the level of surveillance and interdiction that we are presently engaged in, but you must keep the actual numbers in some kind of perspective.
CAVANAGH: Australia has committed just over $US9 million in an attempt to support people fleeing strife in their own countries. This is to reduce them being vulnerable to people smugglers. A large part of this is to focus on displaced people from Burma, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
Senator Evans says there needs to be a strengthening of laws across the region to make it more difficult for people smugglers.
EVANS: We are dealing with quite strong push factors out of Afghanistan and Iraq and Sri Lanka and one of the things we've been seeking to do is to work with them to see if we cannot prove their domestic legal arrangements. They currently don't have in our view enough capacity to prosecute people smugglers, even in Indonesia. And one of the things that is on the agenda for the Bali process is a more common approaches to legal frameworks to ensure we can deal with people smugglers and people traffickers under the law across the region, that we have a more common approach so as to deal with the threat which is multi-national.
CAVANAGH: Apart from government representatives organisations such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees will also be taking part in the Bali talks.
