Malaysia Proposal Issues

Q. If Australia sends asylum seekers to Malaysia, how important are the following issues?

	Very important	Somewhat important	Not very important	Not at all important	Don’t know
There must be a guarantee that asylum seekers are not be subject to cruel or inhumane treatment	58%	21%	9%	9%	4%
There must be safeguards against the development of mental health problems in detention	41%	32%	13%	9%	5%
The plan should have approval from the United Nations	37%	29%	14%	15%	6%
All countries involved should be signatories to the United Nations Refugee Convention	41%	27%	13%	12%	8%
Children arriving in Australia on their own should not be sent to other countries	36%	25%	14%	12%	12%

All issues were considered important by a majority of respondents. The most important issue concerning the proposal to send asylum seekers to Malaysia was that “there must be a guarantee that asylum seekers are not be subject to cruel or inhumane treatment” – 58% said this was very important.

There were major differences by gender – in particular on the issues that “there must be a guarantee that asylum seekers are not be subject to cruel or inhumane treatment” (very important – men 49%, women 66%) and “There must be safeguards against the development of mental health problems in detention” (very important – men 33%, women 49%)