Speaker 1:

When boats full of refugees land on Australia's shores we hear a lot about it. When they wash up on these shores, however, it's a different story altogether. A year and a half ago a terrifying journey that started on Bali ended not where it was supposed to end, in Australia, but here, another Indonesian island, Sumbawa.

Mohammed R.:

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Speaker 1:

After their Australia-bound boat broke down just offshore the mainly Afghani passengers were taken to the provincial capital, Sumbawa Besar, and detained by the Indonesian police. Mohammed Rahib has been housed here ever since with his brother, their wives and six children, in two rooms of a local hotel. His youngest son was born on the boat in a storm as the waves crashed over them.

Speaker 3:

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Speaker 1:

Although the family is now safe, they feel trapped here in a remote outpost of a country that offers them no future.

Mohammed R.:

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Speaker 1:

The scratches on her face are self-inflicted. Evidence of her deep frustration and despair.

Speaker 4:

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Philip Ruddock:

What people are trying to do is to travel to those countries where they would like to be a refugee rather than staying where they are safe and secure. I mean, these people are not in any danger. They're safe and secure in Indonesia. They're being supported, but what they're saying is, "We demand to be resettled in a country where we believe there will be better support available to us financially", and in health terms, then perhaps it's available in Indonesia.

Speaker 1:

Middle Eastern asylum seekers are now incarcerated across Indonesia. In Lombok, a group of 281 mainly Iraqis have been held under guard for three months. This former hotel is now their detention centre.

Speaker 6:

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Speaker 1:

They're still waiting to see the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the UNHCR, which is responsible for assessing their asylum claims.

Speaker 6:

No. No. There is no one from the United Nations come to us. You know, this is four months there is no United Nations. They don't care about us. They just don't want us. They just put us in the hands of the police. Most of us are women without husbands. Their husbands in Australia. What could they do? Stay without husbands?

Speaker 7:

What can I [foreign language]

Speaker 1:

In fact, there's a comprehensive Australian strategy that keeps these women from joining their husbands.

Speaker 3:

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Speaker 1:

The Australian government is paying the Indonesian authorities to catch the boat people and paying the International Organisation for Migration to feed and house them. Indonesia is fast becoming Australia's offshore detention centre. Police headquarters in Lombok now has an office dedicated to illegal immigration. Another boat has just been caught on their patch in Bima, east Sumbawa.

Speaker 8:

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Speaker 1:

At first glance it seems extraordinary that in a country with over one million internally displaced people energy and resources have been dedicated to helping Australia defend itself against a few thousand boat people, but then Australia is footing the bill.

Speaker 8:

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Speaker 9:

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Speaker 8:

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Speaker 1:

What is the capital investment in this strategy for Australia? And how we're getting our money's worth?

Philip Ruddock:

The investment is relatively small and modest in comparison to what it costs us if we have to hold larger and larger numbers of people in detention in Australia, processing their claims, and arranging for their ultimate removal if they're not genuine asylum seekers or refugees.

Speaker 1:

So how much would it be that we're providing the Indonesian police, for example?

Philip Ruddock:

Oh, I can't give you those figures. I don't think it would be appropriate to.

Speaker 1:

Is it the hundreds of thousands or is it millions?

Philip Ruddock:

The amounts could run into several millions of dollars for interruption activities within the region, but those amounts of money are quite modest when you look at the cost of say 1500 people that would be probably be in the order of 80 or 90 million dollars if they come to Australia.

Speaker 1:

It's a cosy arrangement. The cash-strapped Indonesian police force gets much needed external funding and Australia gets willing contractors to help stop the boats before they leave. The only ones not happy with the setup are the asylum seekers themselves who resent being treated like criminals and are escorted by up to three policemen wherever they go.

Speaker 10:

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Speaker 11:

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Speaker 10:

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Speaker 1:

One local journalist things they should be thankful they're not in Australia.

Speaker 12:

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Speaker 1:

Outside the UNHCR office in Jakarta no one feels the slightest bit grateful. When asylum seekers arrive in Australia by boat we call them queue jumpers and accuse them of stealing places from good refugees who wait their turn, but these Iraqi refugees have reached the front of the queue and found that it gets them nowhere. The UNHCR has decided they are genuine refugees in need of resettlement. Almost two years on they're still waiting for somewhere to go. Today they've gathered to register their protest.

Philip Ruddock:

Let's get it right. The fact that they've been found to be a refugee and are in Indonesia where they are safe does not give them a priority place. There is no need, or particular hurry, for them to be resettled. I'm not prepared to accept that they would be holding this sort of Damocles over us and saying you haven't done it soon enough.

Speaker 1:

The UNHCR has written to 11 countries asking them to find places for the refugees who now come under their protection in Indonesia. So far, Finland, Sweden, and the United States of America have all agreed to help, but after six months there's still no reply from Australia.

Kemala Ahwil:

I believe our office in Canberra is doing also as hard as they can, but still, the resettlement countries have their own prerogative.

Speaker 1:

And in this case it seems Australia is deciding to stall as much as it can by not replying to your requests for information on their stats.

Kemala Ahwil:

I don't know about that. Yeah.

Philip Ruddock:

I don't know what letter you are speaking about.

Speaker 1:

They say they've been waiting for six months for a response to a series of letters they sent to 11 countries asking for clarification on whether those countries would accept refugees that they have deemed to be legitimate refugees, and to this date they're waiting for responses from eight countries of which one is Australia. I was just wondering what-

Philip Ruddock:

Let me just say that Australia's position has been made clear.

Speaker 1:

Not to the UNHCR in Jakarta.

Philip Ruddock:

Well, I don't know about the UNHCR in Jakarta.

Speaker 1:

These are Iraqis that have been given the status as refugees and have been waiting for 18 months in Jakarta for resettlement. Will Australia be accepting these?

Philip Ruddock:

No.

Speaker 1:

Many of these refugees are now beginning to regret going through the proper channels. In this Jakarta hotel, Hammad, who is Palestinian, says he's not about to make the same mistake as his Iraqi friends.

So what do you plan to do?

Hammad:

Well, I'm planning to take a boat journey to Australia.

Speaker 1:

And how do you go about organising that?

Hammad:

Well, I have the connections through some people here, and I have friends that they left last week and they already arrived to Australia on Christmas Island.

Speaker 1:

He's already paid the smuggler and is now waiting for the call. Doing things the official way doesn't interest him in the slightest.

Hammad:

Because they've been waiting here two, three years. I'd rather to go there and maybe stay in a camp for a year, then end up going out of the camp and starting a new life.

Speaker 1:

I invited Hammad to watch a video that describes what he and his Iraqi friends can expect if they jump the queue.

Speaker 15:

The detention centres are often thousands of kilometres from major cities and located in remote areas, sometimes deserts.

Speaker 1:

Australia's immigration department produced this video to try and convince would-be boat people that-

Speaker 15:

It is not worth the risk.

Speaker 1:

So, is Australia's scare campaign having the desired effect?

Speaker 16:

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Speaker 17:

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Philip Ruddock:

Why do they have a greater priority than those who have been languishing in refugee camps for years elsewhere. What is the claim for priority except that they had money and were free enough to travel to Indonesia. Every decision you take which rewards people with an outcome that is tantamount to a migration outcome invites more people to do the same.

Speaker 1:

This well known Jakarta landmark is the epicentre of the people smuggling trade in Indonesia. A place to meet and share information, and a place to kill time waiting for your boat to leave. Tonight, as Hammad discovers, it's quieter than usual.

Hammad:

Well, if you would have came last week to this place it was full. It looked like street in Baghdad because there was like 350 people in this place. They all left to be ready to go to Australia on boats. If you wait one more week there will be more coming in here to this place, and the same process all over. It's ongoing process. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

As we now know, those 350 odd people last week eating cheeseburgers in Jakarta are now in detention in Australia. They left for Australia from the west coast of Java. They were lucky to go undetected because, as Dateline has discovered, Australian federal police are active in these remote waters. The owner of this deep sea fishing boat told us that, in an undercover operation, three police armed with Hawaiian shirts and cases of beer rented his boat to investigate people smuggling activities in the area. They were surveying the coast of south Sumatra. From here it's less than 500 kilometres to Christmas Island.

Back in Sumbawa, the Afghani families appear to have settled in. The children attend a local school and have learned to speak Indonesian, but Indonesia will never be more than a temporary home. A stopover on the way to what they imagine will be a better life.

Speaker 18:

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Speaker 1:

Knowing the reception that awaits boat people in Australia one can't help but wonder whether this family, at least, would be better off staying where they are.