Australia is believed to be seeking a deal with the Philippines to permanently resettle refugees in limbo in offshore detention centres.

Cambodia has previously agreed to resettle refugees who tried to reach Australia by boat, but the $55m arrangement faced criticism stemming from the fact it was not contingent on the country taking a certain number of refugees.

So far, just four have been transferred to Cambodia from the Australia-backed regional processing centre on Nauru.

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, confirmed she was talking to the government of the Philippines about the “people smuggling” issue.



“The governments of Australia and the Philippines have long cooperated on irregular migration, people smuggling and human trafficking. These issues are important to both countries, and to the region,” Bishop’s spokeswoman said on Friday.

“These issues were discussed at a meeting between foreign minister Julie Bishop and her counterpart, secretary Mr Albert del Rosario, in the margins of the UN general assembly in New York,” the spokeswoman said.

A deal has not been finalised, but News Corp papers reported that Australia had offered funding of $150m over five years in the initial talks. The president of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino, had yet to sign off on the deal, according to the reports.

Australia funds regional processing centres on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, but the operations have faced criticism on safety grounds – including relating to rape allegations – and long delays in people having their refugee claims assessed.

Nauru’s commitment to process all refugee claims by the end of this week will not be met, with a senior government official saying the claims of some might still take weeks to resolve.

On Monday, Nauru’s justice minister, David Adeang, “committed the government to processing all remaining refugee claims within the next week”.

But the deputy director of the department of justice and border control, Shyla Vohra, told the ABC complex cases, and the cases of people sent to Australia for medical care, will take longer to resolve.

“There are going to be some cases that can’t be finalised quickly for whatever reason, or [where people] need to be re-interviewed, or where we consider we need further information or further research to be done,” Vohra said.

“The remaining cases, where we need to do further research and re-interviews, we’re hoping to get done in the next few weeks; it depends on the complexity of the case really.”

Some of the 600 on Nauru have been there for more than two years without having their refugee status finalised.



Since being re-opened in August 2012, Nauru’s detention centre has been mired in controversy, with consistent reports of assaults of asylum seekers, rapes of women inside and outside the camps, sexual abuse of children and inadequate medical care.

There are currently 653 people held in detention on Nauru, including 114 women and 93 children. The detention camp has become an “open centre” this week, with asylum seekers able to move around the island.

Australia’s high court on Thursday reserved its decision on a legal challenge to offshore detention following a two-day hearing.

Reza Barati, a 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker, was killed during unrest at the Manus detention centre in February 2014. Two Papua New Guinean men are on trial on murder charges.