Australian PM Hopes to Revive Immigration Deal With Malaysia

Former refugees and their children from Myanmar who had settled in Malaysia chat in their house in Kuala Lumpur on August 31, 2011. (Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images)

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Monday said the government would again attempt to amend the country’s migration laws to permit sending asylum seekers to Malaysia, after the policy was ruled against by the high court last month. 

Gillard’s government plans to introduce the legislation into Parliament in a week that would “enable the transfer of irregular maritime arrivals to third countries for the processing their asylum claims,” reads a joint statement by Gilard and Immigration and Citizenship minister Chris Bowen.

The court ruling last month stalled the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia, in an effort to stem the flow of people smuggling to Australia.

“The Government remains fully committed to the Malaysia Arrangement, which ... provides a genuinely effective plan to remove the product people smugglers are able to sell,” says the statement.

The two countries came to an agreement in July, in which 800 asylum seekers held on Christmas Island would be sent from Australia to Malaysia. In return, Malaysia would send around 4,000 already-processed asylum seekers to Australia for settlement.

Australian shores receive several thousand refugees by boat each year, which has prompted an ongoing debate over border security and immigration laws.