Indonesia Hosted a People Smuggling Conference

Indonesia is hailing a regional meeting on people smuggling as a success.

The meeting in Jakarta was attended by about 12 countries, including the source countries of many asylum seekers who have been using people smugglers to try to get to Australia, such as Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

Tens of thousands of refugees from countries like Afghanistan and Myanmar languish in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.... waiting for years for resettlement in countries like Australia.

Many get so frustrated they risk their lives on boat trips across the Indian Ocean in the hope of reaching Australia.

Tony Burke is Australian immigration minister.

“There will be some people who say I am going to give it ago.  There will be some people who get on a vessel and take the risk and there are some people who will drown in doing so. But for everyone who does make it to Australia they will find out that we were exactly serious about the implication of our policy.”

Australia has signed the international refugee convention.

But in the face of increasing numbers of people seeking asylum…it is now doing everything it can to keep asylum seekers out.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has decided the best way for Australia to deal with the issue is to
export the problem to its nearest neighbor, Papua New Guinea.

Under a new deal, Asylum seekers who come to Australia by boat will be re-settled in PNG.

Rimbink Pato as the countries foreign minister explains.

“Any one who is settle in Papua New Guinea once they are determine as genuine refugees they will have the same opportunities as every other citizen of PNG has and after eight years according to our constitution they will be entitled to become citizens of PNG.”

But the PNG foreign minister Pato says already some Iranian asylum seekers have asked to be returned home to Iran rather than be welcomed into life in PNG.

“Fifty of them, on the brief that I got today, have agreed to return back to their country.”

The movement of asylum seekers and refugees is a huge political issue in Australia.

And it's a political narrative that Indonesia has also been dragged into.

It was the Indonesia President’s idea to hold a forum, involving the countries that would-be refugees are coming from, going through, and heading for.

The meeting concluded after just three hours with a three-page declaration.

But Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa rejected suggestions that little in the way of outcomes would come from the meeting.

“I can assure you that it is a far better situation today thanks to the kind of commitment that the countries that have met today have made in identifying and following up areas where we can be working together - for example, the idea of table-top exercises on search and rescue operations - that I think is rather concrete."

Indonesia has also stopped its "visa on arrival" scheme for people from Iran - a scheme which Australia had argued benefited people smugglers.

And is looking to make people smuggling an extraditable offence.

Australia in return says it will look to increase the number of refugees it takes each year from the tens of thousands of refugees that are waiting in for resettlement in Indonesia and Malaysia.