http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/remote-beach-drop-off-strips-asylum-seekers-legal-rights/story-fn59niix-1226027726103

A LARGE group of asylum-seekers who were taken to the Australian mainland for processing rather than strife-torn Christmas Island briefly disembarked on a remote beach on Ashmore Reef, a move that ensured they could still be processed as "offshore" asylum-seekers.

In what the opposition labelled a cover-up, the asylum-seekers, who were intercepted by Customs last week, now have fewer appeal rights after they were forced to get off the Customs vessel Triton at West Island, on Ashmore Reef. Under the Migration Act, asylum-seekers who arrive in a place excised from the migration zone are considered "offshore" entrants.

Asylum-seekers have typically been taken to Christmas Island, which, like Ashmore Reef, was excised from the migration zone by the Howard government in 2001. But because of recent rioting amid overcrowding at the island's detention centre, authorities have closed Christmas Island to new arrivals, instead taking them to the mainland. If asylum-seekers take their first steps on the mainland, they have unfettered access to the courts.



This is why the LIBs implemented the Pacific Solution - Labor decided to abolish the policy now it is trying to resurrect it