GOVT WANTS REGIONAL RESPONSE TO REFUGEES

The federal government is set to boost assistance to two key international refugee
agencies to meet the challenge of a surge in asylum seekers across the region.

As negotiations continued with Indonesia to find a strategy for dealing with an
influx of asylum seekers heading for Australia, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said
Canberra would increase its efforts to push for a more regional approach.

The comments came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was set to discuss the problem of
people smuggling and asylum seekers with other leaders at the East Asia Summit which
began in Thailand on Sunday.

"In the course of the East Asia Summit the prime minister will be speaking to his
counterparts throughout the region," Mr Smith said.

"But also importantly we're looking at what more assistance we can be to two
relevant institutions operating in this area, in Indonesia and in our region - the
United Nations High Commission for Refugees and International Organisation for
Migration (IOM)."
"We're looking at what more we can do to meet this heightened challenge."
The opposition said it supported additional funding for both organisations.

"The coalition helped fund those two agencies, too," opposition immigration
spokeswoman Sharman Stone said.

But Dr Stone warned that providing additional funding to help with the processing of
asylum seekers in places like Indonesia would do nothing to address people
smuggling.

"You have to have that expenditure right up the smuggling channels back in to places
like Pakistan and Afghanistan," Dr Stone said.

"This government has got to look beyond Indonesia and right back to the sources of
the frustrated asylum seekers that leave those countries and don't come through the
legitimate pathways."
Mr Smith said Canberra and Jakarta needed to work more closely together, including
increasing the sharing of intelligence on people smugglers.

"We've got to do more together to address those challenges, and they're the
discussions which are currently under way between Australian officials and
Indonesian officials.

"We need to have in our view greater cooperation so far as intelligence sharing is
concerned, greater cooperation so far as disruption to people smugglers' efforts are
concerned."
Negotiations on a deal that would see asylum seekers headed for Australia processed
on Indonesian soil were also continuing, he said.

The deal is yet to be finalised. The plan is reportedly expected to cost $50 million.

Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop said the federal government should reveal
details of any deal struck with Indonesia.

"Australians deserve to know how much this will cost, and how much Australian
taxpayers are being asked to foot in terms of the bill," she told reporters in
Perth.

The so-called "Indonesia solution" is expected to be discussed when Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visits Australia next month.

But the Rudd government is under pressure over the plan amid reports asylum seekers
being held in Australian-funded detention facilities in Indonesia have been
subjected to physical abuse including beatings.

Conditions in the camps are much harsher than what asylum seekers detained on the
Australian mainland and on Christmas Island experience.

Mr Rudd said he was unaware of the reports.

"Secondly, in terms of facilities with Indonesia, my advice is they are subject to
regular visitation by the IOM ... including the provision of a range of services by
the IOM, including medical advice."
Dr Stone said Mr Rudd and the Labor government must take responsibility for the
treatment of asylum seekers held in Australian-funded facilities in Indonesia.

"He knows that as a developing country Indonesia has very different standards of
detention facilities.

"When Australia placed a detention facility on Manus Island, we didn't then at the
same time say to PNG you now have complete responsibility for the detainees and the
conditions of those detention centres, nor was that the case in Nauru."