Rudd's PNG Solution appears to be unravelling

Transcript

Questions linger over the refugee resettlement deal between Australia and Papua New Guinea, amid uncertainty over where refugees will be resettled.

The arrangement, signed last month between Prime Ministers of both countries, stipulates that any unauthorised maritime arrival entering Australian waters will be sent to PNG's Manus island in the first instance for processing and resettlement in PNG or any other participating regional state.

However other Pacific island governments appear reluctant to join the deal and, as Johnny Blades reports, PNG has denied two key elements of the arrangement as touted by Australia's leader Kevin Rudd:

The exclusion of Australia taking on any asylum seekers arriving by boat was the central tenet of the so-called PNG Solution that Kevin Rudd announced to the Australian public last month.

Yet in recent days PNG's government has cast doubt on both this and the provision that PNG would settle all the refugees.

PNG's Prime Minister says it is not just PNG and Australia's issue to deal with.

Facing deep domestic discord over the deal,  Peter O'Neill says his country will work with the UNHCR and other regional countries, including Australia and New Zealand, to resettle refugees.

PETER O'NEILL: It does not mean that everyone who goes to the Manus processing facility will be resettled in PNG. I want to also make it very clear that even giving citizenship to genuine refugees, it must comply with our own laws, and there's a process which applies to non-Papua New Guinean-born persons becoming citizens in our own country.

Inevitably, regional states are weighing up the prospect of taking Australia's asylum seekers.

The Solomon Islands Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo says he has rejected an informal request from Australia to take asylum seekers.

Fiji's government has been scathing in its criticism of the deal.

Vanuatu's Deputy Prime Minister Edward Natapei has also firmly rejected the idea, saying Vanuatu needs to focus on domestic issues before it can get involved.

EDWARD NATAPEI: No, there hasn't been any question recently. There were some questions before when I was Prime Minister of the country and my answer was no. Vanuatu is not prepared to host asylum seekers. Full stop. That is the answer that we will give them again this time.

While not ruling out helping those in need, Vanuatu's Prime Minister Moana Carcasses says the solution to Australia's asylum seeker problem may lie in Australia.

MOANA CARCASSES KALOSIL: It is a problem. I don't want to be in the shoes of the prime minister of Australia to fix that but we don't want to be also, the Pacific to be used as the dump area for that. Australia is a big country, you have a lot of space. Maybe the solution is there. I don't know.

Like PNG, Nauru's government has agreed to accommodate Canberra's asylum seekers under the new deal. But as Mathew Batsiua of Nauru's opposition says, the government's public assurances that refugees won't get citizenship or residency are inconsistent with the agreement.

MATHEW BATSIUA: You cannot escape the fact that the words and the text in the MOU clearly states that Nauru has accepted to resettle any person deemed to be a refugee under the convention and are seeking refuge here in Nauru. The government has committed Nauru to that position and that's clearly the words of the MOU that they've signed off to. Now they're trying to back-pedal saying really what they meant is different.

Meanwhile, Peter O'Neill has denied that he agreed to settle all the refugees - he says Australia will need to take back a share of them.