SYDNEY: People-smugglers have resorted to slashing prices and offering special deals for boatpeople seeking a new life in Australia, including children travelling for free, as the country’s tough asylum-seeker policies hurt their profits, a top official said.
The number of boats arriving in Australia has dried up under the government’s policy of turning them back to Indonesia and denying would-be refugees resettlement by sending them to Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
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