8 Nov 2013

Just 3 inexperienced PNG officials to handle Australian refugee claims

5:14 am on 8 November 2013

Just three junior immigration officers are to process the refugee claims of the more than 1,100 asylum-seekers sent by Australia to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

The Australian newspaper reports PNG's chief migration officer, Mataio Rabura, saying three inexperienced staff got some training in Sydney on how to become investigative interviewers of the would be refugees.

The paper says there are fears that with the asylum-seekers housed in difficult conditions, with little prospect of their claims being resolved quickly, a serious disturbance at the facilities is inevitable.

It also reports the more than 200 asylum-seekers who have been returned from Nauru to Australia in the past few months had to agree to abandon any work done on their refugee claims in Nauru and start afresh in Australia.

The Australian immigration minister Scott Morrison has indicated that the off shore detention camps are reserved for those asylum seekers who arrived after Canberra's policy change on July the 19th.

But he says the government retains the right to house pre-July 19 arrivals there if it sees fit.