Open up on Obama refugee deal: ALP

Labor has urged Malcolm Turnbull to be more transparent about the deal reached to resettle refugees in the US.

Labor has urged Malcolm Turnbull to be more transparent about the status of the deal with Barack Obama to resettle refug­ees in the US as an expert said there was no reason to assume the agreement was in trouble.

Opposition immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann yesterday reaffirmed Labor’s strong support for the resettlement deal and suggested a lot of work was going on “behind the scenes” to make it happen. But he attacked the government for keeping progress secret amid concern the US security vetting was taking a long time.

“We are hopeful that the Trump administration will fulfil the commitment made by the Obama administration,” Mr Neumann told The Australian.

“But the government is adopting the same attitude towards the US arrangement that they’ve adopted in their execution of policies in this area since they’ve been in office ... They’ve adopted the same degree of secrecy, lack of transparency and lack of accountability.”

Sarah Graham of the US Studies Centre at Sydney University said it was a mistake to think the deal would not proceed, arguing it was not a high- profile issue in Washington.

Dr Graham said the recent debate over the deal’s future had been triggered by comments from Texan Republican congressman Brian Babin, who described the deal as “madness”, rather than anything president-elect Donald Trump had said.