The federal government is preparing to send the first group of asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea under its new hardline policy as people smugglers continue to test Labor’s resolve.
More than 1200 asylum seekers have arrived on 17 boats since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the PNG resettlement deal on July 19.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke said he’d expected boats to keep coming as people smugglers tested the government’s will to send asylum seekers to the Manus Island processing facility.
“We always said people would test our resolve,” he told Sky News today.
“They’d love to think they could overwhelm our capacity – they can’t.”
Work is continuing at the detention centre on Manus as the first group due there by Friday complete health checks in Australia.
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The fourth and final airlift of equipment destined for the expanded facility will arrive in Port Moresby later today. Each flight carried 10 shipping containers packed with tents, marquees, polls, frames and a range of building equipment bound for Manus Island.
Mr Burke said permanent accommodation would replace temporary shelters and the centre could be expanded rapidly as required.
Repeatedly pressed over whether he expected the PNG deal would slow the boats before the federal election, Prime Minister Rudd has refused to bite.
“It is the implementation of that policy direction over time, resolutely, which will yield results,” he told Network Ten’s Bolt Report.
“In the interim, people smugglers will test your resolve.”
The Prime Minister said he had always expected people smugglers to test the government’s resolve on its new PNG arrangement.
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“(But) we are not for turning. Our policy is very clear,” he said.
“Our policy is very clear … you will not be settled in Australia.”
A Galaxy poll published by News Corp Australia found people rated Mr Rudd better than Opposition Leader Tony Abbott at handling the asylum-seeker issue, 40 to 38 per cent.
The poll was taken between July 23 and 25, within a week of Mr Rudd’s PNG announcement.
Labor frontbencher Kim Carr said Australians had very strong views on asylum seekers.
“They’ve got a right to have those attitudes,” Senator Carr told Network Ten.
“We are, however, concentrating on stopping people from drowning.”
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the real test for the PNG arrangement would be whether asylum seekers would be resettled in that country.
“I know people want to believe that this thing is the answer,” he told ABC television.
“But the truth here is there is a long way to go both in the implementation and legal issues.”
