Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop are publicly at odds over whether arrangements for Australia to take refugees in Costa Rica in return for the United States resettlement deal constitutes a “refugee swap”.
In comments to Sky News on Tuesday evening, the immigration minister conceded for the first time that the two were linked, warning Australia will not take refugees in Costa Rica until the US takes refugees as part of its resettlement of up to 1,250 people held on Manus Island and Nauru.
Although Dutton denied the arrangement amounted to “a people swap deal” he conceded: “I don’t have any problem with that characterisation if people want to put that.”
Speaking in Washington on Wednesday Australian-time after meeting US vice-president Mike Pence, Bishop denied the arrangements amounted to a “people swap” deal.
Asked about the risk the US might use “extreme vetting” to refuse to take refugees, the foreign minister said the deal always allowed the US “consideration of those they wish to resettle”.
Bishop said Australia and the US were both generous nations when it came to refugee resettlement and she is sure the US would continue to be so.
The foreign minister said the Costa Rica aspect of the arrangements did not come up in the conversation, and the US resettlement deal is “being dealt with at officials’ level” while the deal progresses.
In September, Australia committed to take refugees from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador now in camps in Costa Rica. In November, the Turnbull government announced that the US would take refugees in offshore detention on Manus Island and Nauru. The government has repeatedly denied the commitments are a quid pro quo.
But Dutton has now linked the two after the Trump administration committed to honour the deal but emphasised that under its policy of “extreme vetting” it is not obliged to take any particular refugee or the full 1,250 people.
Dutton said Australia “wouldn’t take anyone [from Costa Rica] until we had assurances that people are going to go off Nauru and Manus”.
Asked if this constituted a quid pro quo, he replied: “We want an outcome in relation to Nauru and Manus.”
“It was beneficial to the US, and it was beneficial to us,” Dutton said, using the singular to describe an arrangement the government had previously characterised as two separate commitments.
The immigration minister said the government had learned from the Gillard government’s proposed Malaysia solution. “We accepted all the people from Malaysia and not one person went from Australia – we’re not going to be sucked into that sort of silly outcome,” he said, without acknowledging the Coalition’s role in blocking the policy.
On Wednesday shadow defence minister and former shadow immigration minister, Richard Marles, told Sky News that Dutton had now made it clear the deals were a quid pro quo, despite Turnbull’s denials.
“Everyone knew it was a deal and last night … Peter Dutton belled the cat, making clear Costa Rica was contingent on the US honouring the deal.”
Marles said the government had characterised the US arrangement as “such a done deal … but if you look at Peter Dutton’s comments, clearly he is putting a question mark on this. So is this going ahead or not? Is it enough of a done deal that we can be certain that people will be taken off Manus or Nauru or not?”
Dutton said the Australian government “appreciates the support of President Trump” for accepting the arrangement and “takes the US at its word”.
Dutton said Bishop would not have to discuss the US deal in great detail because it was working well, with US officials already visiting both offshore camps.
Dutton said that he expected people would start to leave Manus Island and Nauru “in the not too distant future … in the next couple of months”.
Asked if the US resettlement deal had acted as a lure to refugees to come to Australia, Dutton conceded there was evidence that people smugglers had tried to turn it “into a message of hope” to sell boat journeys to Australia.
He said the government had not made a statement about whether boats had increased, but added: “These people smugglers have not gone away.”
Refugees would be prevented from reaching Australia with increased surveillance, he said, and warning that no one who arrived in future would get the benefit of the US deal.
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