Agreement reached to reopen Manus centre
10 August 2011
THE ABC IS reporting that the O’Neill government has given in-principle support to Australia's proposal to reopen the detention centre on Manus Island to process asylum seekers.
The Australian government had been negotiating for some months without success with former prime minister Sam Abal to achieve this outcome.
The decision will come as a great relief to the Gillard government which is under serious political attack for its failure to develop an effective solution to one of Australia’s hottest political issues.
Negotiations were given fresh impetus by last week's unexpected change of government that installed Peter O'Neill as prime minister.
The report said that, during a phone conversation with Ms Gillard last week, Mr O'Neill agreed in-principle to reopen the centre.
A spokesman says "the issue has been resolved" and "Manus will be made available to the Australian government".
Details, including how many people will be sent to manus, are still to be decided.
Nor is it clear when an agreement will be finalised.
Reg - Why not? If we (Australia) are paying, Manus will get a benefit. What, pray tell, do the Manus Islanders get from agricultural, tourism and anything else you can think of for their economy?
These so called refugees have to go somewhere until processed. The people smugglars are just vultures living off "displaced corpses"!
I believe it is a great win all situation for PNG, Australia and the boat people to be property assessed.
Posted by: Colin Huggins | 11 August 2011 at 05:23 PM
Manus is not a good solution for Australia's offshore strategy of stopping refugees.
Posted by: Reginald Renagi | 11 August 2011 at 03:32 PM
What would be some of the impacts of the detention centre on the Manus Islanders?
Posted by: Joe Wasia | 10 August 2011 at 11:11 PM