rudd revises refugee assessment

ABC Online...
Australia's refugee tribunals have been ordered to take new country assessments into account when assessing the claims of asylum seekers from countries including Iran, Afghanistan and Vietnam.

The ministerial directive has been issued as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd works on a new-look asylum policy which will need to be in place before he can reveal when Australians will go to the polls.

And the issue was highlighted again late yesterday when four asylum seekers drowned after their boat capsized as it was being escorted to Christmas Island by Australian Navy ships.

The new assessments have been prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

And the Greens say the updated advice is part of a Government drive to have more asylum seekers classified as economic migrants, paving the way for them to be returned to their countries of origin.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr has been laying the ground for change. For weeks he has been arguing that most of the thousands of asylum seekers coming to Australia are not refugees, but economic migrants.

"There have been some boats where 100 per cent of them have been people who are fleeing countries where they're the majority ethnic and religious group and their motivation is altogether economic," he has said.

Senator Carr has argued that most asylum seekers from Iran are actually economic migrants.

Mr Rudd is expected to announce a revamped asylum seeker policy in the next few days.

"I don't believe we can just assume that all of our policy settings over the last several years cannot be changed," he told a community cabinet meeting in Rockhampton last night.

"[They] will need to be changed as we encounter changes in our circumstances."

'No evidence' of economic migrant influx

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young fears the Government will fly large numbers of asylum seekers home.

"I don't have any faith that advice that is politically motivated from Bob Carr and Bob Carr's department is going to serve refugees well," she said.

"The idea of fly-back, in competition to Tony Abbott's tow-back - that's not a solution," she said.

Australia's Human Rights Commissioner says there is no evidence to support the Government's economic migrant claim.

Professor Gillian Triggs says 90 per cent of asylum seekers are found to be genuine refugees.

"When we were assessing asylum seeker claims up until August 13 last year, approximately 90 per cent of claims for refugee status were found to be valid," she said.

"So I think that Senator Carr is making an assumption for which there's no evidence."

The Government faces increasing pressure over the issue following two asylum seeker boat tragedies in recent days.

Overnight, at least four people died when their boat capsized off Christmas Island and last week nine people, including a baby boy, died when their boat sank near the island.

Dave R.