Flying asylum seekers out of the overcrowded Christmas Island detention centre comes with a $1 million bill each month.
The Gillard Government has spent $3 million on charter flights in the past three months to ferry asylum seekers to mainland capitals, Fairfax reports.
The costs peaked after the March riots on the island when detainees set fire to an accommodation wing and authorities deployed tear gas to control the protesters.
The most expensive charter flight was May 6, when 51 asylum seekers were flown to Leonora, a remote WA mining town, at a cost of $450,986, Fairfax reports.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen told AAP the charter flights were an "operational matter" for the department and were only used if commercial flights weren't available.
He said the Howard Government had also used charter flights to move asylum seekers to Australia, when they were in power.
The Gillard Government is in the process of finalising a deal with Malaysia to swap 800 asylum seekers that arrive in Australia by boat for 4000 of Malaysia's already processed refugees.
Eight boats carrying more than 400 asylum seekers have also arrived in Australia since the government's May announcement but it is believed they will not be a part of the 800 asylum seekers Australia sends to Malaysia.
Source : http://news.ninemsn.com.au
ue to previous transition in Nigeria, Nigerian people went to various European countries as asylum seekers. Most of them could not fulfill the requisite criteria defined by the relevant countries. According to Global laws legitimized by UN, such people had to be deported to countries and stated of origination.
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