PNG, Aust urged to address asylum-seeker issues quickly

Speaker of Parliament Job Pomat says the government needs to immediately address  the Manus asylum seekers’ issues.
Pomat told The National that the governments of PNG and Australia had to immediately process those people.
“If they are genuine and they want to place them wherever, and take them to Australia, so be it.
“But those who are not, they must be sent back.
“It’s been too long that these people have been in Manus and all these incidents have been happening, including the recent death.
“I’ve been calling on the authorities responsible to take immediate action but I will now personally go and talk to the new immigration minister.
“I will also talk to the authorities in Australia and see how they can quickly process these people so they can leave.”
Pomat said he was approached by some of the asylum seekers expressing that they were depressed and wanted to go to Australia.
He said they came to PNG because they wanted to be processed to go to Australia and they had been waiting too long.
“The PNG and Australia governments must speed up the process to address these issues because the longer the delay, there will be more incidents,” Pomat said.
He expressed concern about the many children born to women in Manus from the asylum seekers.
“We have young women in Manus and these are human beings and its happening, and that is beyond our control,” Pomat said.
“What has happened has happened and we can’t change it, but we can look at the future.
“We must look at these kinds of issues, certainly this is not the first time this  has happened.”