Turnbull to meet Obama on asylum deal

Malcolm Turnbull is planning to raise the US agreement with Barack Obama this weekend.

Turnbull and Obama will discuss the US offer in Lima, Peru. Picture: Gary Ramage

Malcolm Turnbull is planning to raise the US agreement to take up to 1,600 asylum-seekers from Nauru and Manus Island with Barack Obama in Peru this weekend — his last chance to meet the US President before Donald Trump takes over.

The Prime Minister and Mr Obama are planning to meet at the APEC forum in Lima to discuss progress on the agreement for the US to take asylum-seekers in detention, an arrangement they began working on in January, in Washington DC.

Mr Turnbull will also discuss the expected failure of the US to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership on trade as a result of Mr Trump’s election and Mr Obama’s inability to get the pact through congress.

The meeting comes as the government tries to intensify pressure on Bill Shorten to give up his objections to a “lifetime ban” on asylum-seekers who arrive by boat, with officials warning yesterday the ban was part of a suite of measures to back the resettlement agreement.

As concerns grow that people smugglers will hold out the prospect of settlement in the US to lure more asylum-seekers, the government came under fire from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation yesterday for “caving in” to open-border advocates by seeking to resettle those on Manus Island and Nauru. Mr Turnbull and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton have been closely questioned this week about the possibility Mr Trump would reverse the Obama administration’s decision to take refugees, given the president-elect’s warnings against Muslim immigration.

Mr Obama is attending the APEC meeting this weekend for his last major summit before the inauguration of Mr Trump on January 20, setting up a chance for Australia to cement the resettlement arrangement before the transition to a new administration. Mr Turnbull did not raise the resettlement deal with Mr Trump when they spoke last week, arguing that he should deal with one administration at a time, but Mr Turnbull and Mr Dutton have both said they expect the agreement with one president to carry over to the next.

While Mr Trump at one point suggested a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, he modified this to a plan for “extreme vetting” of people coming from territories with a history of terror. “They’re going to come in and we’re going to know where they came from and who they are,” Mr Trump said in July.

The arrangement with Australia includes this “vetting” by US officials, who are heading to Manus Island and Nauru in the coming days to prepare for security, health and character checks on some of the 1,600 people already granted refugee status by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.

Yesterday Mr Dutton said “this government has struck a deal with the US to get people off Manus and Nauru” and called on Bill Shorten to agree to the proposed lifetime Australian visa ban on those accepted into the US.

“We are getting them off. We are doing it in a way that means that we can stare down the threat of new boat arrivals, but if we have divided messages coming from Australian political leaders, the people smugglers will trade on those messages,” Mr Dutton said.

“We don’t want to see new arrivals filling the vacancies in the regional processing centres on Nauru and Manus. The reality is that this government is dealing with the threat to our country over the next three or four days, over the next three or four weeks, over the next three or four months. This problem of people smugglers is with us, it is tangible.

“We know that we have 14,000 people in Indonesia waiting to get on to boats now and we need to have this legislation in place so that we can stare down threat from the people smugglers.”

Department officials used a Senate hearing into the lifetime ban bill yesterday to insist on the need to permanently exclude asylum-seekers who come by boat, a measure that will go to the Senate next week after it passed the lower house last week over Labor’s ­objections.

Department of Immigration and Border Protection secretary Mike Pezzullo said the ban was part of an integrated suite of measures including a bolstered naval deployment to turn back boats. He said the US had not asked for the lifetime ban legislation. “No, and frankly it wouldn’t have anything to do with them,” he told the Senate inquiry.

Asked if anyone could be settled by the January 20 inauguration, Mr Pezzullo said “I wouldn’t say anyone” but added that the scale of the intake would be up to the US.

“There’ll be no rushing in any event because these procedures are in many cases mandated by US law,” he said.