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People-smuggling advice to be paid
for
By LINCOLN WRIGHT
The Howard Government will cover
the expenses of visiting immigration experts from countries
like Iran and Afghanistan, who will be invited to Australia to
provide ' in country' information about people
smuggling.
In an interview with The Canberra
Times, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said yesterday the
foreign experts would attend immigration seminars, where they
would provide information which could be used by the Refugee
Review Tribunal when it assesses visa decisions.
Mr Ruddock issued a warning that
officials working for the Department of Immigration in
overseas posts were under threat from the organised crime
groups that were behind the trafficking in illegal
immigrants.
But any threat to staff was an
extremely sensitive issue, and he would not provide any more
details.
' This is a very serious issue,
which goes to our ability to control who comes into the
country,' Mr Ruddock said.
It is understood, however, that
one of the biggest problem countries is Indonesia.
A member of the Refugee Review
Tribunal supported the move, saying last night that spending a
few tens of thousands of dollars a year was a small investment
to make to come to grips with the people-smuggling
racket.
' It's a good thing. It will mean
you are better informed. We need more exchanges with the
people over there,' the source said.
Referring to his recent trip
overseas, Mr Ruddock said there was a need to utilise the
technical information of people working on the ground in
countries which were supplying illegal immigrants.
' A lot of the information I
received [overseas] was at variance to what happens here,' he
said.
Iraq was a source country of
immigrants who received a very high number of refugee visa
approvals in Australia, and better in-country information was
needed to assess whether this was warranted.
A spokesman for the minister said
last night not all immigrants from Iraq were ' homogeneous' ,
in that only some had left Iraq for refugee reasons. Expert
testimony was needed to work out which of them had proper
grounds for refugee visas.
The invited experts would not sit
on the Refugee Review Tribunal, but any information they
provided would be used in the overall process, Mr Ruddock
said.
The decision to pay foreign
experts to visit Australia was an outcome of Mr Ruddock's
recent trip overseas, when he visited Iran, Syria, Turkey,
Pakistan, and Jordan to gather information about illegal
immigration.
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