Locals want Manus detention centre to stay

Transcript

The governor of Papua New Guinea's Manus Island says most locals are grateful Australia opened an asylum-seeker processing centre there because people have more money in their pockets as a result.

The Refugee Action Coalition says no one has been sent to the Manus centre since an asylum seeker was killed in February during two nights of violence, and believes Australia plans to close it.

The governor for Manus Province Charlie Benjamin, says he hasn't heard anything about the centre being wound down.

He told Bridget Tunnicliffe that as long as the locals are benefitting, they want the centre to stay.

CHARLIE BENJAMIN: Right now it is employing about 1,000 plus Manusians, it's giving employment to young people there, young men and women. So in general the people of Manus are quite happy, business is picking up and the people have money at least they have some money in their hands although a lot of those jobs really have to do with labour rather than anything else.

BRIDGET TUNNICLIFFE: So would there be do you think reluctance from the people of Manus, they would be sad to see the centre closing?

CB: The people of Manus would want to see the detention centre there so long as we are benefitting. I think the issue here is whether the Manusians are being involved as much as they should and the Australian government, whether its promised assistance, because up till now we are not really sure about his so-called 'special assistance' to Manus. There is nothing in black and white so we are not really sure about what the assistance is, although Australia is helping here and there in some ways. They are now working on a market that cost about six million kina, there's some assistance to school infrastructure like 20 double classrooms that are being built. They said they would be working on the resealing on parts of the road from Lorengau town to the airport, those are some of things that they said they would be doing and I think they're doing it. Probably the people of Manus probably expected them to come in a bigger way and probably expected them to do it a lot faster so maybe they are assisting but probably not in a way that we had thought would happen.

BT: Okay and we know that there are some asylum seekers that have been granted refugee status, do you know whether any of them have actually been resettled in Papua New Guinea yet?

CB: I have know idea as to that but Manus Province, being a small province, we have a small island, we do not intend to have any permanent asylum seekers or those that have been granted status, to be on this island, we would only be helping in processing it on behalf of the Australian government and Papua New Guinean government.

BT: What about if these people are resettled in other areas of Papua New Guinea, do you think Papua New Guineans would welcome them or could there be some concerns there as well about outsiders taking local jobs and things like that.

CB: I think that so long as they have the skills that this country needs I'm sure they would be welcome.

BT: Do you think locals have any resentment towards the refugees though?

CB: Not really, Papua New Guineans are not that type. We always love other people, we always try to help them where we could so I don't see that as a problem in this country.