Boatpeople to be sent offshore

AUSTRALIA: Australia’s parliament has passed a law allowing it to transfer asylum-seekers arriving by boat to other countries, despite objections that refugees could be held indefinitely in remote camps.

The Senate, parliament’s upper house, passed the legislation late Thursday after months of political wrangling, enabling the government to send boatpeople to Papua New Guinea and tiny Nauru to have their refugee claims processed.

It represents a compromise by the centre-left Labor government, which had previously abandoned offshore processing -- Australian policy under former conservative prime minister John Howard.

AFP