Government gives itself power to pay any non-citizen to leave Australia

The newly expanded scheme allows the government ‘to bribe people seeking asylum to return to a country where they fear persecution and violence,’ the Greens immigration spokesperson, David Shoebridge, says. Photograph: Anadolu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The federal government has quietly given itself the power to pay any unlawful non-citizen to leave Australia or for foreign countries to resettle them, in what the Greens have labelled an attempt to “bribe” asylum seekers.

New regulations made on 15 August expanded the return and reintegration assistance program (RRAP), which currently pays up to $7,500 cash plus expenses to people on bridging visas, or those who arrived by boat, to leave Australia.