Julie Bishop tells neighbours to lift asylum weight

Julie Bishop has hit back at suggestions Australia should take in more ­refugees from Indonesia ahead of a high-level meeting.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has hit back at suggestions Australia should take in more ­refugees from Indonesia ahead of a high-level meeting on people-­smuggling and trafficking this week, instead calling on regional neighbours to do more to resolve a growing gridlock of people seeking resettlement.

In Jakarta yesterday for ­bilateral meetings and to open Australia’s new embassy ahead of tomorrow’s Bali Process ministerial meeting, which she will co-chair with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, Ms Bishop said Australia was ­already “sharing the burden and will be looking to other countries in our region to do similarly”.

Last week, Indonesia’s director-general of immigration, Ronny Sompie, said the country’s 13 asylum-seeker centres were bursting at the seams — with a fivefold increase in residents over the past seven years — and that Australia had to take in more ­refugees.

But Ms Bishop said: “It’s my understanding Indonesia will be asking all countries to do more to resolve what is a regional ­problem, and not just pointing to Australia.

“We already take 13,750 ­people each year under humanitarian and refugee visas. We have added an additional 12,000 ­people from the Syrian conflict. We provide about $90 million over two years to Indonesia to help support those asylum-seekers who are here in Indonesia and we have also taken, since 2010, 2000 people who have been deemed to be refugees in Indonesia. If other countries are prepared to do what Australia is doing it might begin to make a difference.”

The Bali meeting, to be attended by 44 member ­nations, is expected to focus on developing strategies to avoid a repeat of last May’s crisis in which thousands of Rohingya asylum- seekers were stranded at sea, refused safe port by successive Asian nations.