Angry protesters have met Kevin Rudd outside a special caucus meeting in Sydney.
PEOPLE smugglers are testing Kevin Rudd's new PNG Solution with up to ten boats on their way amid revelations the cost of the first year operation of an expanded Manus Island camp could exceed $1 billion.
The expected influx comes as a vessel which was overdue at Christmas Island yesterday was found by Australian rescuers with 30 passengers safe and well.
Asylum seekers who have arrived since the deal was signed have broken down in tears when told they would be taken to Manus Island and resettled in PNG.
Four boats carrying more than 250 people have arrived since Friday but only single adult men can be sent to PNG immediately with families to remain in Australia until facilities are ready, which could take until next year.
A group of 15 Vietnamese asked to be returned home from Manus Island at the weekend with the Australian government to give them hoes, wheelbarrows and shovels and $300 each to encourage them to remain in Vietnam as farmers and not attempt to sail to Australia again.
It comes as there was renewed questions of the two page agreement with Papua New Guinea which provided the country with a blank cheque to resettle refugees.
In the past week other documents related to government spending include a 35 page paper on a request for new TVs for Senator's offices and a 16 page paper to justify a quote for two electric guitars for the Department of Defence.
The government is yet to release the cost of the PNG plan but just expanding existing Manus Island facilities to run a processing centre for 3000 asylum seekers is expected to cost up to $1.1 billion in its first year of operations.
Asylum seekers at Flying Fish Cove, Christmas Island, believed to be the first group subject to the new rules.
And that is before the cost of resettlement, which could cost up to $15,000 per person, and the pricey promise to help the third world country rebuild health facilities and to fund a new university system.
The costs, drawn from the Immigration Department's own contract estimates of operating processing centres, suggest the expansion of Manus Island from 600 detainees to 3000 would incur an initial cost of $600 million.
Operational costs of managing a centre of that size could be as high as $480 million a year, according to recent departmental contracts on the costs of running offshore processing centres.
Yesterday Immigration Minister Tony Burke said the cost would be less because temporary facilities such as tents would be used. However, PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill appeared to contradict Mr Burke claiming he would demand a permanent facility.
The Government has argued that the eventual cost would be budget neutral because the number of asylum seekers would fall.
"Labor's blank cheque solution for PNG is short on detail and long on cost. With Labor's record of $10.3bn in cost blowouts so far, whatever figure Chris Bowen comes up with, you can be confident that the costs will only rise from that point on,:" Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said.
Meanwhile, Uniting Church Reverend Elenie Poulos, who is also Chair of Australian Churches Refugee taskforce, said the PNG policy was unchristian.
"Turning people away is not a Christian response," she said.
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