Fiji attacks Australian new asylum seeker policy

Fiji has launched an attacked on the Australian government's new tougher asylum seeker policy, saying it could change the social fabric of the Pacific island nations, local media reported Monday. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Papua New Guinea's ( PNG) Prime Minister Peter O'Neill recently announced an agreement that will ensure all asylum seekers who arrive by boat will be sent to PNG for processing and possible resettlement. Fiji Foreign Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola on Monday told the 20th Australia-Fiji Business Forum in Brisbane that Australia has proposed a solution that threatens social stability in the region. "For an Australian problem, you have proposed a Melanesian solution that threatens to destabilize the already delicate social and economic balances in our societies," Kubuabola said. "We are deeply troubled by the consequent threat to the stability of these countries and the wider Melanesian community by the scale of what is being envisaged," he added. "This deal, and those mooted with Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, clearly threatens our interests by altering the fundamental social fabric of any member country that accepts a deal." The foreign minister said that while he respected the PNG government's sovereign right to make the deal, it was done without proper consideration of the long-term consequences. "This was done without any consultation, a sudden and unilateral announcement, which is not the Pacific way and has shocked a great many people in the region," Kubuabola said. He said the deal continued to show a pattern of behavior on the part of the Australian government that is inconsiderate, prescriptive, high-handed and arrogant. "We share the horror of many in the international community at the deaths of more than 1,000 asylum seekers trying to reach Australia,"he said. "But we cannot remain silent when the current Australian government dumps this problem, which is arguably of its own making, on our doorstep."