SI reject Australia’s Pacific Solution on Asylum Seekers

Solomon Islands Prime Minister. Solomon Times Photo

Honiara (Solomon Star): The Pacific nation of Solomon Islands has rejected Australia’s request to play a role in the federal government's plan to send asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea for processing and resettlement.

The country's Prime Minister, Gordon Darcy Lilo has been in talks with Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr on the matter.

This follows last month’s announcement that no asylum seeker who reach Australia by boat will ever be resettled in Australia, instead they will be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and, if found to be refugees, will be resettled there.

“No we will never consider that. It was informally put to us and I rejected,” PM Lilo said.

“I basically said No to them.”

“They made a choice to go to Australia and not to come to Solomons that is the first issue” PM Lilo told Fiji journalists in Nadi while attending the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) inaugural meeting.

PM Lilo bluntly rejected the idea of the Pacific Solution that is invented in Australia saying the issue must be first consulted amongst leaders of the region.

“Pacific Solution has to be discussed broadly with all the Pacific Leaders. You cannot invent something in Australia and say that is a Pacific Solution. That’s wrong but more fundamentally the choice of asylum seekers.

"They made a choice to go to Australia, not to go to Papua New Guinea or Solomons,” he said.

PM Lilo emphasized that Australia must respect the rights of asylum seekers as stipulated under the UN Charter.

“It’s a non issue when you know that global citizens decide to depart their country of domicile to make a life elsewhere.

"You have to respect their choice, that’s their fundamental right. You cannot ignore it. It’s a right that is guaranteed under the UN Charter,” PM Lilo explained.

Back in 2011, under former Prime Minister Danny Philip, the Solomon Islands was keen to host a refugee processing center

Last week, Fiji’s foreign Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola launched an acidic broadside against Australia’s government’s plan to send all asylum seekers coming by boat to Papua New Guinea for processing and possible resettlement.

He said Australia used its economic muscle to persuade a Melanesian country to accept thousands of people who are not Pacific Islanders into the region.