Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for her question. The government has announced that the Australian and Malaysian governments have committed to enter into a landmark transfer agreement under the regional cooperative framework and that this process undermines the efforts of people smugglers to seek to encourage people to undertake very risky journeys to Australia. This in fact is a new initiative to ensure that we are able to take all the necessary steps to highlight the extra­ordinary dangers of undertaking such a voyage and to indicate to people that this is a counterproductive move and is unlikely to produce the results that people are looking for in terms of finding settlement here, because people will be sent to Malaysia, from which many of them come originally, and will be placed at the back of the queue.

What we are seeing for the first time in these arrangements is that the UNHCR will be directly involved—