I am just not convinced that PNG is any safer than the places they are seeking asylum from. This news will bring riots and protest all over the country, I give it a few weeks before we hear the humanitarians jumping up and down.
In another report I read, the PNG PM stated they were going to take 3000 refugees and our aid was to increase by $160M to PNG.
$53'000 per person is a pretty sweet deal for PNG if Australia pays for all of their resettlement costs. But if it is open ended like Rudd is claiming and they get through another 15'000 people in the next year, $10'000 per person isn't so great.
Ether way, the numbers will quickly fall to zero once asylum seekers realise they will end up in PNG. And if PNG get their $160M in perpetuity it will have been a good deal for them.
I think Australia has a international responsibility to take our fair share of refugees, but What that figure is and whether we should be able to impose quality requirements on them needs to be discussed.
Either way, this whole issue is just a tiny side effect of the true issue which the international community appears to have no desire to tackle.......over population. From 1.65B to 7.1B in 100 years. We need to seriously look at attaching population control stipulations to any aid to 3rd world countries. But our economy appears to be totally reliant on constant population growth, so I can't see any politician actually proposing anything of the sort.