Refugee deal threatens to hurt Gillard

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Prime Minister Julia Gillard seems set to go ahead with a refugee swap deal with Malaysia despite mounting opposition and polls showing public anger at the move.

Canberra and Kuala Lumpur are reported to have agreed to the final text of a memorandum of understanding under which Malaysia will send 4000 officially recognised refugees to Australia, in return for accepting 800 asylum seekers from Australia.

But the deal, which Gillard had hoped would take the heat off her failure to establish a regional centre in East Timor - or to find an alternative - is rapidly turning against the Government.

The decision to include unaccompanied children in the swap, and Malaysia's insistence its laws will prevail, has further inflamed opponents and sparked emotive descriptions of the children as "sacrificial lambs".

The agreement has also started to drive wedges between Labor's right and left factions, renewing murmurings of a potential revolt against Gillard's leadership and the collapse of support in the polls.

Gillard's problems with asylum seekers have been accentuated by her difficulties with the proposed carbon tax, which is also under heavy fire from the Opposition and unpopular with voters.

A Galaxy poll in Sydney's Daily Telegraph said yesterday that 66 per cent of voters were opposed to sending asylum seekers to Malaysia, a country which has not ratified United Nations conventions on refugees and human rights, and which uses caning as a punishment.

The poll said almost half of those polled were strongly opposed, and only 26 per cent showed any form of support at all.

The proposed carbon tax is under similar fire.

Galaxy said that 58 per cent of respondents opposed the tax, and a Morgan poll said the tax was opposed by 53 per cent of voters, with 37 per cent supporting the move.

Morgan also said two-thirds believed the proposed tax would make no difference to the world's climate.

But the Government is determined to push through both its agreement on asylum seekers with Malaysia and the carbon tax, the details of which will be settled this month and which Gillard plans to have up and running by July next year.

Fairfax newspapers reported yesterday that the Government was close to completing the refugee swap deal, and had agreed to the final text of a memorandum of understanding between the two countries.

Citing an unnamed Malaysian Government source, they said a dispute between different Malaysian ministries over aspects of the deal was understood to have been resolved and it was now awaiting approval by the Malaysian Cabinet.

An also unnamed senior Australian Government source reportedly confirmed the deal was close.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott, claiming Gillard's standing within her own party was so low that Labor backbenchers were telling him of their growing concerns over the leadership, said there was no need to send asylum seekers to Malaysia.

He said facilities already existed on Nauru, and all Gillard had to do was pick up the phone and speak to the island's president, Marcus Stephen.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen yesterday again dismissed Nauru as a "poor option", while Singapore's New Straits Times quoted an assurance from Professor Khaw Lake Tee, the chairwoman of the Malaysian, Human Rights Commission, that asylum seekers would not be caned and would be treated with dignity and respect.