Australia stands by Tamil visa rejection
Updated
The Australian government is standing by a decision not to issue visas to five Tamils. The five were declared refugees by the United Nations but found to be a security risk to Australia. Australia's immigration and foreign ministers have declined to give details of the security risk and say they'll now work with the UNHCR to find another option for the group. But concern is being raised about the secretive role of Australian intelligence in the process.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Chris Evans, Australia's Immigration Minister; Stephen Smith, Australia's Foreign Minister; Bruce Haigh, former Australian diplomat
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MOTTRAM: The five Tamils concerned are now in Australia's immigration detention centre on Christmas Island. Found to be refugees by the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, Australia won't accept them for resettlement, after the domestic security agency, ASIO, deemed them to be a security threat. The group was flown to Christmas Island after a long stand-off with Indonesian and Australian authorities late last year on board the vessel that picked them up at sea, the Australian customs ship the Ocean Viking. Australia's Immigration Minister is Chris Evans.
EVANS: They've had negative security assessments under the public interest checks required under the legislation and as a result they do not qualify for permanent visas to enter Australia and they won't be entering Australia they'll be detained on Christmas Island in appropriate detention facilities until such time as we're able to resolve their particular cases and that'll be done in discussions with the UNHCR.
MOTTRAM: But the question now is where will the group go? Back to Sri Lanka, where advocates fear for their safety or to another country? Senator Evans acknowledges it's difficult but not impossible to resolve.
EVANS: Well people have in the past sought to voluntarily depart or we work with UNHCR to find resettlement options. This isn't the first time this has occurred. I think were at least two who were on Nauru under the previous government who failed their security assessments and you work with UNHCR to find a solution for those persons.
MOTTRAM: Under the Howard government, several such cases saw people in detention for five years. Senator Evans says the government is working hard to avoid indefinite detention. In this case too, there are two children accompanying two of the adults affected. They are not being held in detention or behind barbed wire, the minister says. As to what constituted ASIO's adverse finding against the group, and particularly whether the group was found to be connected to the rebel LTTE, the Tamil Tigers, and whether they were as such viewed as potential terrorists, neither Chris Evans, nor his colleague, the foreign minister Stephen Smith would be drawn.
SMITH: Well I don't categorise or characterise them in any way whatsoever. I simply make the point that they are subject to rigorous security assessments. From time to time a small number of people who successfully apply for refugee status fail that security assessment.
MOTTRAM: Mr Smith also says the Tamils would not be forced to return to Sri Lanka. The Australian opposition has used the issue to again criticise the Rudd government's general management of asylum seekers and specifically the special arrangements offered to the Tamils from the Oceanic Viking. Former Australian diplomat, Bruce Haigh, whose postings included the Australian High Commission in Colombo, is also critical of ASIO and of the likely basis for the intelligence assessment on the five Tamils.
HAIGH: When I was in the High Commission in Sri Lanka one of the things we were asked to do by the Australian department of immigration was to check out refugee applicants to make sure that they didn't have an adverse security background and that entailed going to the Sri Lankan police, the Sinhalese police, and seeking a police clearance which was absolute nonsense because if these people were on the other side in a civil war why would you go to just one party and ask them about the security rating of somebody applying for refugee status. So it was always going to be and always has been a flawed process and that's what's happened in this instance I'd say.
