Prime Minister Tony Abbott and PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill in Port Moresby.
"It's a joint effort": Prime Minister Tony Abbott and PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill in Port Moresby. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen







The Abbott government was consulted and strongly backed the
decision of the Papua New Guinea government to shut down a human rights
inquiry into the Manus Island detention centre, Fairfax Media has been
told.



PNG's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Rimbink Pato, has
also confirmed that the two governments would move to deny access of a
human rights lawyer to the centre on Monday.




"It's a joint effort. We're the best judges in terms of what's happening
on the ground, but we're in concert because this is a partnership.
We're together," he said in an exclusive interview.



He said Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Julie
Bishop shared his concern that the inquiry carried dangers and should be
challenged. "They were concerned as well that we should do something
like this. It's a joint thing."



Advertisement


Prime Minister Tony Abbott appeared unaware of the joint nature of the
move, insisting to reporters on Saturday that PNG Prime Minister Peter
O'Neill had not flagged it with him when they met on Friday.



Mr Pato said the government was moving on the basis that Justice David
Cannings, a former human rights lawyer, was presiding over the inquiry
he had initiated and that the inquiry was calling experts without
complying with "proper processes under PNG law".



Mr Pato said lawyers who were not admitted to practise in PNG and
medical doctors who were not registered to practise medicine in PNG
would not be permitted to be involved in the inquiry.



Justice Cannings instituted his inquiry into human rights at the centre
after an asylum seeker was killed and scores of others injured,
allegedly after PNG nationals employed as security guards entered the
centre.



When the government secured a stay on the proceedings at least until
Wednesday, Justice Cannings instituted new proceedings allowing refugee
lawyer Jay Williams access to the centre to see 75 of the more than 1300
asylum seekers in the centre.



But Mr Pato said the PNG government, acting in concert with Australia,
would move on Monday to extend its action to include these proceedings,
and so deny Mr Williams access to the facility.



He also signalled that PNG would announce the first tranche of negative
decisions on asylum seeker claims as early as the next fortnight,
suggesting almost 20 negative decisions would be communicated to asylum
seekers.



The move to stop the inquiry came after a PNG government official shut
down questions on the centre at a joint press conference of Mr Abbott
and Mr O'Neill on Friday.



Mr Abbott insists he was not given advance warning of the move against
the inquiry during what were described as close, constructive, candid
talks on the Manus detention centre and defended PNG's "robust legal
system".



He also backed Mr O'Neill's pre-emptive assessment that most of the
asylum seekers interviewed so far were not "genuine referees" but
"economic migrants".



"There's a lot that we've seen which justifies that suspicion," he told
reporters on Saturday, citing the opinion of former Labor foreign
minister Bob Carr that "the vast majority" of those coming by boat were
not in genuine fear of persecution if they remained in their homelands.



Mr Abbott refused to be drawn on when and why the government had
accepted that not all of those at the Manus centre found to be refugees
would be resettled in PNG, or on the state of negotiations with other
possible resettlement countries in the region.