Australia's policy of sending refugees to Cambodia mocked

Australia's troubled policy of sending refugees to Cambodia lurched towards farce on Thursday, as Canberra's rosy portrayal of the Southeast Asian country was mocked as propaganda - and Phnom Penh said only one migrant had agreed to go.

Rights groups rounded on an official Australian government-made video for potential settlers in which Peter Dutton, immigration minister, styles the poor and autocratic Southeast Asian state as offering a "fast-paced" future "free from persecution" and rich in possible jobs.

The claims are the latest effort to jump-start a programme key to the Tony Abbott government's "closed-door" immigration strategy that is being touted as an option for Europe but has been sharply criticised on human rights grounds by the UN and others.

In the near four-minute video, Mr Dutton warns refugees being held in detention in the island state of Nauru that they will never be let into Australia and so should grab the chance to go to Cambodia while they can.

"Cambodia provides a wealth of opportunity for new settlers," Mr Dutton says in the film, which it is not clear has been seen by refugees. "It is a fast-paced and vibrant country, with a stable economy and varied employment opportunities."

Ian Rintoul, spokesman for Australian's Refugee Action Coalition, attacked the video and an information letter drawn up by the Australian government that styles Cambodia as offering good quality housing and healthcare and "all the freedoms of a democratic society". He said some of the claims were clearly false and risked inflaming tensions at the Nauru detention centre.

"When the previous minister for immigration broadcast a similar video at the Nauru and Manus Island camps last year it sparked serious disturbances, unrest and instances of self-harm," he said.

The immigration department's positive gloss is certainly a contrast to the tone of the warnings the Australian foreign ministry issues to citizens travelling to Cambodia.

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Further doubts have been cast on Canberra's Cambodia strategy by a report that the only refugee to have agreed to travel is a member of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, according to quotes by Khieu Sopheak, a Cambodia interior ministry spokesman, in the Cambodia Daily newspaper. Mr Khieu Sopheak could not be reached for comment on the status of the resettlement programme, under which Cambodia would take the refugees in return for A$40m in development aid.

A spokeswoman for Mr Dutton insisted the information in his video was "accurate and authoritative". She added the arrangements for the first group of refugees to travel to Cambodia were "progressing", but did not elaborate on how many people were due to go, or when.

Mr Dutton said at a press conference on Thursday that a group of people from Nauru had accepted the government's offer to be relocated to Cambodia and would travel there shortly. He said troublemakers in Nauru were attempting to convince people not to accept the government assistance package accompanying any move to Cambodia.

As European leaders struggled this week to respond to a migration crisis that has led to thousands of drownings in the Mediterranean, Australia has lauded its hardline asylum policy as the only way to "stop the boats" and smash people traffickers. But the UN and rights groups have condemned the Abbot government's 18-month-old policy of turning back asylum-seeker vessels that enter Australian waters.

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