Australia Offers Assylum Seekers $10K To Go Back Home

In 2001 Australian navy personnel rescued asylum-seekers from a sinking boat off Christmas Island.

Australia is offering asylum-seekers in its Pacific immigration camps up to $10,000 (US$9,400) if they voluntarily return to their home country, a report said Saturday, prompting outrage from refugee campaigners.

Fairfax Media reported that those returning to Lebanon from detention centres on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and the tiny Pacific state of Nauru were offered the highest amount of $10,000.
What does the chart below (you may need to click on it to enlarge) tell you about asylum seekers? All lessons today contain sound.

The chart displays the Australian govt.attitude towards asylum seekers.

 Iranians and Sudanese were given $7,000 if they dropped bids for refugee status, Afghans $4,000 and those from Pakistan, Nepal and Myanmar $3,300, the report in The Sydney Morning Herald said.

 Some asylum seekers help people of their own as they fall into the sea due to high sea ...

 The Herald said under the previous Labor administration -- in office until last September -- the payments were much lower, ranging from $1,500 to $2,000.

Take us to New Zealand ... Sri Lankan asylum seekers wave signs after Indonesian authorities intercepted their boat near Bintan Island.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has not confirmed the figures, but a spokesman said the "return packages" were "tailored to the circumstances of each case".
"The process of voluntary return is conducted in direct partnership with the International Organization for Migration. It has been standard policy and practice for more than 10 years."
Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles said the government should be ensuring that asylum-seekers' claims were being properly processed, not issuing "blank cheques".

A new poll has revealed that the majority of Australians support the idea of asylum seekers being processed in Australia.

Refugee campaigners criticised the idea of the payments, and said returning asylum-seekers could still face persecution back home.
"The idea that you would put people in a hell hole like Manus Island, treat them abysmally and then try to bribe them to go back to the appalling circumstances they left shows just how morally bankrupt this government is," Greens party leader Christine Milne said.

Good Shepherd Australia and New Zealand organized a Chapel for a reflection and to hear about current issues facing asylum seekers in the community.