People smugglers are advertising New Zealand to asylum seekers as easier to get into than Australia, new reports claim.
Secret audio recordings of Indonesian people smugglers has caught them offering to lock asylum seekers into shipping containers to send them to industrial ports in New Zealand and Australia in a bid to enter the countries unnoticed, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported.
They are also told that New Zealand could be a better option, and can be accessed by both ship or air.
Potential asylum seekers in Cisarua, West Java, told the newspaper that a number of smugglers had offered a container ship service to New Zealand, or to Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory. Prices ranged from US$8000 to US$14,000 ($9657 and $16,900), and would leave from ports in Bali, Kendari in Sulawesi, or West Papua.
Smugglers were overheard promoting New Zealand as open and easy compared to Australia, the paper reports.
The SMH reports it has a secret recording of one smuggler saying that for US$9000 ($10,864) per person, he could send Afghan people by air from Jakarta to West Papua, and then in a shipping container to New Zealand in seven days.
"New Zealand is very clean ... Everything is better than Australia, the only problem is just unemployment ... New Zealand is a golden opportunity. You can take your mother, your brother, all of your family after proving they are in danger, too," the SMH quotes the smuggler as saying in the tape.
It also claimed smugglers were telling customers they can have residency in New Zealand in 45 days.
However, the Government has recently tightened immigration laws to allow a court to order six months' detention for people who enter New Zealand in a "mass arrival" of 30 or more. They must then wait three years before they can apply for permanent residency.
There has never been a mass arrival of asylum seekers to New Zealand.
It is thought more people are looking to New Zealand in a bid to get around Australia's toughened immigration laws, and comes after a fishing boat arrived into the port of Geraldton, Western Australia, in April with passengers holding a sign saying: "We want to go to New Zealand."
The shipping container technique is believed to be an attempt to bypass Australia's 'boat people' policies, which sees intercepted boats sent straight to detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
Described as "the cruise ship" option, the shipping container method has had disastrous outcomes in Europe, where people have died of suffocation or dehydration during various journeys.
However, one of the smugglers was said to have promised potential asylum seekers that they would spend only around nine hours sealed in a container before it is opened, and they can then roam freely on deck, SMH said.
- Patrice Dougan of APNZ
