More than 150 asylum seekers, including about 40 children, face living in limbo on the high seas in an Australian customs vessel for weeks, while their fate is decided in the High Court.
Lawyers for the Abbott government and the asylum seekers agreed on a timetable for court action on Tuesday after the government promised to give 72 hours’ notice in writing if it intended to hand the asylum seekers to Sri Lankan authorities. A directions hearing will be held within three weeks, raising the question of where the asylum seekers will be held in the interim.
During the hearings, the government revealed that it had intercepted a boat carrying the asylum seekers outside Australia’s migration zone and transferred them to a customs vessel. This follows the revelation on Monday that it had already handed over to Sri Lanka 41 asylum seekers on another boat after they were subjected to ”enhanced screening” at sea.
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Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said the government had offered no commitments on what it would do with the asylum seekers in its custody.
”I have no doubt [Immigration Minister] Scott Morrison is currently working the phones trying to find some godforsaken place to dump them,” he said.
In Parliament, the government’s Senate leader, Eric Abetz, defended its hard line on boat arrivals, declaring: ”I see no sense of social justice whatsoever in giving priority to those who bypass safe haven after safe haven after safe haven and then pay a criminal to get them to the front of the queue.”
Human rights lawyer George Newhouse said after the hearing: ”What the government’s decision today means is that a group of vulnerable men, women, and children will not be sent back to their persecutors in Sri Lanka.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/asylum-seekers-in-limbo-on-high-seas-20140708-3bl63.html#ixzz36ujjkmcO
• Fairfax: Global media turns focus on return of Sri Lankan asylum seekers
• ABC: Julian Burnside says Government could be guilty of piracy for holding 153 asylum seekers at sea
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• Mark Kenny, Fairfax: Upper House unpredictability leaves Coalition stalled
• Christine Milne: PM Abbott exposes government incompetence “The only thing that is clear today is that the Prime Minister has failed. This is government by incompetence. Deals in back rooms designed to stitch up the Senate have come unstuck. Tony Abbott is a crash or crash through Prime Minister, and today he crashed,” said Senator Milne. “This is chaotic and it shows complete contempt for the processes of the Senate. The government gagged the debate then had to filibuster when the amendments came unstuck. The whole thing came to pieces. “This is going to characterise this whole period of government unless Tony Abbott learns to respect the Senate and give it time to be an effective house of review.
