Australia Tightens Access To Asylum Seekers Who Have An Impact On Indonesia

Illegal Immigrant from Middle East

Australia Tightens Access To Asylum Seekers Who Have An Impact On Indonesia

Sydney, Australia (between/Reuters)-Australia's Conservative Government Wednesdayreiterated its decision to stop asylum seekers from the Middle East across Indonesia to settle in Australia, and potentially has issues thousands of refugees stranded inIndonesia.

The Government of Australia announced on Tuesday (18/11) that the asylum seekerswere registered at the United Nations Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Indonesiaafter 1 July is no longer eligible to live in Australia.

Australia will continue to accommodate some refugees who registered before that date, but have cut the number of places allocated, which means waiting period inIndonesia will be resettled will be longer.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the new rules designed to stop the flow ofasylum seekers into Indonesia from Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

"Smugglers smuggle people into Indonesia to be able to dimukimkan in Australia." said Morrison told ABC radio Wednesday.

Intelligence and military cooperation back performed by Australia and Indonesia sincethree months ago after a difficult subject case of wiretapping telephone conversationsof President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife as well as a number of high level officials talks Indonesia more.

The number of asylum seekers to Australia to become the benchmark in comparison with other countries, but this is an issue of political polarization. Before Australia won the election last year, Prime Minister Tony Abbott campaigned heavily with such issues.

To this end, UNHCR has recorded 10.623 asylum seekers and refugees who are inIndonesia is still waiting to be resettled to April. Meanwhile, about 100 people enrolledhimself in the Office of the UNHCR in Jakarta every week.

Morrison declined to say whether the change was discussed by the PRIME MINISTERand President of the Abbott Indonesia Joko Widodo in G20 Summit in Brisbane last week, but said Indonesia "fully assess" those decisions before they are published.

"We are very pleased to work together with Indonesia in any way we can to reduce the number of asylum seekers in Indonesia, but not through a process of encouraging more people to come to Indonesia because they think they will get a visa to Australia," said Morison.