For four weeks Malaysia has been in the news in Australia on a daily basis without fail:
BUT FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS
Draft documents of the asylum seeker swap deal with Malaysia that show no references to protecting human rights show the Prime Minister has told "fibs", Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.
Lateline revealed last night that draft documents on the deal - where Malaysia would accept 800 Australian asylum seekers in return for Australia taking 4,000 refugees - show Malaysia has removed all references to human rights.
It also confirms Malaysia wants a veto over the 800 people Australia sends there, and also wants Australia to cover nearly all the costs.
"Yet again the Prime Minister has told fibs. She said Malaysia would have no say over who went as part of the 800. Plainly Malaysia will have a veto," Mr Abbott told Channel 9 this morning.
"She also said the human rights of these people would be respected and yet the two words that Malaysia wants to take out of the agreement, two minor little words, [are] 'human rights'."
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says unaccompanied children will be among those sent to Malaysia under the deal, saying "I don't want children getting on boats to come to Australia, thinking or knowing that there is some sort of exemption in place."
Refugee lawyer and advocate David Manne says that means nine unaccompanied children currently on Christmas Island risk being sent to the brutality of Malaysian detention camps.
Mr Manne says the documents reveal how difficult it is going to be to arrive at the stated aim, "proper protection for people expelled from Australia to Malaysia".
"Malaysia is really pushing back very hard. They are really seeking to avoid any clear or concrete commitment to meeting international human rights or refugee standards.
"The draft has no reference to human rights at all, in fact both terms, refugees and asylum seekers, are both absent from the document."
Mr Bowen says the deal should only be judged when it is finalised, but he says he will not put in a clause to exempt unaccompanied children.
"You need to send a strong message," he said.
"I never want to go through, and I don't want our nation to go through, what we went through in December and the months following, burying children as a result of a boat accident.
"And it is inevitable that that will occur again unless we break the people smugglers' business model."
Mr Manne says there are nine unaccompanied children on Christmas Island ready to be shipped off to Malaysia.
"The Minister is the legal guardian of those children under United Nations conventions on the rights of the child and the refugees convention. We must take into account their best interests at all times."
He said Australia would be putting children in harm's way and at risk of brutality: "At what cost are we doing this?" he asked.
Mr Bowen points out the Lateline documents are a draft and the final deal has not been reached.
"The Malaysian government has been very clear [in its] commitment to deal with those people in a way which respects their dignity, which respects human rights standards, and that is why organisations like the UNHCR have been involved in these discussions," he said.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says Mr Bowen has a special responsibility for unaccompanied asylum-seeker children.
"The minister, for the sake of a political quick-fix, is prepared to expend the rights and obligations he should be offering to these very, very vulnerable children," she said.
Senator Hanson-Young also insists specific protections for human rights must be included in the final deal between Australia and Malaysia.
"The Prime Minister specifically said that human rights must be respected," she said.
"Human rights has been deleted from the document in negotiation with Malaysia; human rights is not clearly the bottom line for either Malaysia or, you would have to argue, Australia."
The document states the asylum seekers will be subject to Malaysian laws. It also says those issued with a UN refugee agency card will be treated with "dignity and respect".
Richard Towle, the regional representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is working on the refugee swap deal, says the agreement must include specific human rights protections.
"It's incumbent on both parties to the agreement to make sure those children and women and vulnerable torture victims are taken care of appropriately," he told Lateline.
"And it's very important to have a monitoring and an oversight mechanism to ensure they [receive] the kind of protection they need."
But Mr Towle says the deal is still under discussion.
"We hope that the agreement will be judged on its final terms, not according to one piece of a part of a negotiation that has been going on for some months," he said.
"It's no secret we have had some difficulties with part of the process.
"That is why we have come back and said in our view we want to see some good clear protection standards for the people returned."
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