ANALYSIS Australia’s unpopular Labor government has signed a whatever-it-takes deal with Malaysia to stop mostly Middle Eastern asylum seekers sailing across from Indonesia.

If the agreement, signed yesterday, is successful, it could lift support for Prime Minister Julia Gillard and improve her chances of staying in office beyond parliamentary elections next year.

NONE Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak could also benefit. He has leveraged improved relations with Australia to take part in a novel scheme that helps a neighbour and shows statesmanship by taking on the regional problem of people smuggling.

The bare bones of the deal show Malaysia striking a very hard bargain in agreeing to take the next 800 asylum seekers who arrive in Australia. In return, Australia has agreed to resettle 4,000 people from Burmese currently in Malaysia who have been approved by the United Nations as genuine refugees.

Australia, on the back foot at the bargaining table, will be covering the costs in a one-off deal that runs for four years but could be renewed.

A worry for Kuala Lumpur is that more Burmese nationals will be lured over the border into Malaysia from Thailand, where more than 150,000 have already taken refuge.

A smaller concern is that the Australian media will expose the extortion and harsh treatment that illegal migrants receive in Malaysia.

immigration department and refugees Australia extracted a promise from Malaysia during negotiations that the refugees sent there would not be prosecuted under local immigration laws, which allow for anyone without the right documents to be whipped or imprisoned.

In a joint statement yesterday, the two countries said “the transferees will be lawfully protected in Malaysia and provided with exemption under the Malaysian immigration act”.

But Australian Greens party immigration spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young expressed scepticism of the commitment.

The 93,000 asylum seekers currently in Malaysia are not allowed to work legally or send their children to school and are often forced to bribe police to stay out of detention, she told national broadcaster ABC.

She found it hard to believe “that these 800 that we send to Malaysia will be treated any differently,” she said.

Greens unlikely to withdraw support

The Greens are formal partners in the minority government formed after August’s dead-heat parliamentary election.

They will bleat about Gillard’s nasty tactic to stop the boats but are unlikely to withdraw their support and let the opposition Liberal Party take power.

By the same token, human rights lobby groups and opposition politicians in Malaysia are likely to berate Najib over the Australia swap deal but unlikely to unseat him over it.

Australian Immigration Minister Chris Bowen reckons that the deal, estimated to cost at least A$296 million (US$316 million), will stop boatloads of asylum seekers heading for Australia by “smashing the people-smugglers’ business model”.

He is banking on asylum seekers in Indonesia being dissuaded from paying for a passage to Australia by the fear of ending up in Malaysia and at the back of the queue for resettlement in rich countries.

His belief is that friends and relatives back home will try for Europe or North America instead.

Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, who negotiated the deal for Najib, agreed with Bowen that he was party to an “innovative and bold arrangement” to address a thorny regional issue.

Malaysia has little to gain from being a conduit for asylum seekers and a headquarters for people-smugglers.

The Australian opposition Liberal Party has pointed out that the looming deal has failed to put off asylum seekers so far, although a cynic might suggest they have a political interest in seeing the scheme fail.

Spokesperson Scott Morrison said that 11 boats have arrived in Australia, carrying a total of 567 asylum seekers, between the time the swap was announced on May 7 and when it was signed yesterday.

- dpa