Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said today that draft legislation would go before Parliament this week to salvage Australia’s people-swap deal with Malaysia.

Australia has agreed to resettle 4,000 proven refugees in return for Malaysia taking the next 800 asylum seekers arriving in Australia on boats from Indonesia.

But the deal, announced on April 7 and signed on July 25, was blocked on Aug 31 by a ruling from the nation’s highest court preventing deportations to countries like Malaysia that lack legal protection for refugees.

“What will come before the parliament is this concept that (offshore processing) should be the decision of executive government not the courts,” she said.

Gillard’s minority Labor government needs the votes of the opposition Liberal-National coalition to get her amendment on the statute book.

Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott complained that the amendment, as initially drafted, “stripped out” the requirement for legal protection and gave the government “entirely unfettered discretion” to deport asylum seekers to anywhere it chose.

Gillard said a new draft restored the protections for asylum seekers.

One hundred boats have arrived in the 15 months since Gillard became prime minister and there are 5,236 asylum seekers in detention awaiting the outcome of their asylum applications.

Gillard, who touted the people-swap as an antidote to people smuggling, has committed her government to accepting the 4,000 mostly Burmese refugees from Malaysia regardless of whether any asylum seekers, who are mostly Aghans, Iraqis and Iranians, are sent to

Malaysia.

- dpa