Australia’s Cambodia Refugee Deal is Dead

From VOA NEWS — 
Australia’s controversial refugee resettlement deal with Cambodia has expired and is “no longer an option” for the immediate future, the country’s Senate has been told.

Senator Richard Di Natale, the leader of the Australian Greens, pressed the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) on the future of the agreement in a Senate Estimates Hearing last week, transcripts of which were released Thursday.

“Senator, the MOU expired on the 26th of September so it’s no longer an option for refugees on Nauru to resettle into Cambodia,” DFAT’s people smuggling and human trafficking Ambassador Geoffrey Shaw told the committee.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne told senators her staff had alerted relevant agencies to death threats Cambodian ruling party agents had allegedly made against the country’s diaspora community.
“We are concerned about suggestions that individuals may be threatened in Australia," Payne said.
“That’s why we’ve made representations to the Cambodian government and it’s why we have forwarded those threats to a number of appropriate authorities in Australia. We don’t condone those activities and we take those allegations very seriously.”
In September, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on a campaign led by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son Hun Manet to exert influence in Australia by recruiting a force of exchange students.
Four senior members of Australia’s Cambodian community had received death threats, it reported.
Sok Eysan, spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), denied the allegations about death threats made by the CPP agents. He said it was a fake news fabricated by the opposition party to spoil the reputation of the CPP.
“I think that this information is a fake information which (was) invented by the opposition groups,” he said.
In June, the Australian parliament passed sweeping new foreign influence laws that targeted a raft of spying activities and introduced a register for individuals or entities undertaking activities on behalf of foreign principals.
Professor Thayer said Cambodia could inadvertently become an early target of that legislation.

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