Refugee advocates say Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is in "complete denial" about how the global refugee system works, after his decision to block genuine refugees from resettlement in Australia if they arrived in Indonesia after July.
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The chief executive officer of the Refugee Council of Australia, Paul Power, said the government's decision to prevent asylum seekers found to be owed protection from entering Australia via Indonesia - while claiming that the decision was tied to stopping the boats - was "unconscionable".
"The Minister has very little understanding of the global situation for refugees," Mr Power said. "His perspective that people should not move from one country to another is in complete denial that people are in significant danger who are in countries of first asylum."
The Abbott government is also conducting a global internal review into its humanitarian program, which has raised concerns that other genuine refugees who have registered with the UNHCR could also be blocked from applying for resettlement in Australia.
Mr Morrison has refused to talk about the review, but claims the Indonesian decision will take the pressure off the country. "This is designed to stop people flowing into Indonesia and to support Indonesia and for them not to become a destination country where people will wait just to get a visa to Australia," Mr Morrison said on Wednesday.
But Indonesia's justice and human rights minister Yasonna Laoly said Indonesia was already overwhelmed with asylum seekers.
"It's Australia's right, but it becomes a burden for us," Mr Laoly told the ABC on Thursday. "There are 10,000 foreign citizens, which becomes a burden for us."
The decision will also decrease the number of genuine refugees who applied before July able to be resettled in Australia from 600 per year to 450. This will, in turn, create lengthy delays.
Refugee expert Margaret Piper, AO said the government's rationale was "flawed on many levels".
"For a start not every refugee is safe in the country of first asylum, and many refugees need to go further a field," she said.
There was no law that you must seek asylum in the first country you reach, Ms Piper said. "You have a right to keep searching," she said, using the example of Hazaras, who will often flee to Pakistan but are still not safe.
The Jesuit Refugee Service similarly slammed Mr Morrison's decision, saying it would do nothing to ease the flow of migrants seeking asylum in Indonesia.
"It simply shifts the responsibility of resettlement to other countries and increases the burden on Indonesia, a country that only recently requested increased resettlement from Australia," Father Aloysious Mowe said.
Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles said he was deeply concerned about Mr Morrison's "glaring lack of engagement" with Indonesia over the announcement.
