28/07/2011 (Radio Australia) - A Malaysian cabinet minister says Australia should reconsider its push to introduce palm oil labelling now that Malaysia's agreed to host 800 asylum seekers.

The Malaysian Minister for Plantation Industries and Commodities, Bernard Dompok, is in Australia to lobby federal MPs against the proposed laws.

Supporters of the law argue that palm oil plantations cause deforestation and threaten the habitats of endangered orangutans.

But Mr Dompok says the laws will only hurt Malaysia's rural poor who rely on the palm oil industry for their livelihoods.

Presenter: Joanna McCarthy
Speaker: Bernard Dompok, Malaysian Minister for Plantation Industries and Commodities

DOMPOK: I think I would like to say to our Australian friends why don't we spare a thought for those other people in Malaysia, Malaysians who live in the rural areas, who have no access to the facilities or whatever in town and dependent entirely on agriculture. Over the years, I think the oil palm industry has lifted up a lot of its people so they were no longer wallowing in poverty and I think we should be treating them probably I expect a little bit more treatment for the homo sapiens.

McCARTHY: Minister, while you're here it would be remiss of me not to ask you about the government's deal with Malaysia over refugees. What benefit does this deal offer the Malaysian government?

DOMPOK: I have not really gone into it, because I have been away, I was away in Italy when all these things were probably bought up to cabinet lately. It was discussed broadly while I was there, but I have not seen the details. So I will not be able to offer them much comment on this today.

McCARTHY: Well, some critics here and in Malaysia are suggesting that Australia is really outsourcing its international obligations towards refugees to Malaysia, a developing country, when Australia has the resources to take care of the issue within its own borders. Do you have any response to that?

DOMPOK: Certainly, I mean if that really were the case, then it is imperative now for Australia not to disturb our palm oil. When you see how things have developed, how friends can help friends.

McCARTHY: You see a connection between the two issues?

DOMPOK: I think so, there must be a connection, because if indeed if it's seen in that light, but I have not looked at it and also indeed if it's seen in that light, then you can see how working together, the two countries can help each other.

McCARTHY: Well given that Malaysia is helping Australia with a domestic political problem that it has here, do you think that the Australian government should try to help out Malaysia?

DOMPOK: Well, I think on a basis that the oil palm industry, for example, it requires recognition and that's about all we are really asking and not for us to be labelled discriminately and we feel that perhaps these are a non-tariff barrier actually.

McCARTHY: On the refugee issue, just briefly, you would know that the Australian government is going to pay for the health and education of those who are sent to Malaysia and that those who go to Malaysia will have the right to work. These are a level of rights that don't exist for refugees in Malaysia at the moment. Is this creating two classes of refugees within Malaysia, those who are protected by the Australian deal and others who have far fewer rights and can even face punishments like caning, for example?

DOMPOK: I think we have to start defining what a refugee is and what an illegal immigrant is and I think it happens all over the world. There are not many places in the world, probably excepting Australia perhaps, if that is the case. All over the world, I think it's not possible for us to treat illegal immigrants in the same way that we can provide for our citizens. Malaysia has a lot of people who are below poverty line, people who are still very poor, requires government assistance and all this and we can't even begin to tackle all these other problems.

McCARTHY: And you do have more than 90-thousand unauthorised?

DOMPOK: We have a lot more than that illegal immigrants in the country.

McCARTHY: Because this deal is shining a spotlight on the human rights treatment of those 90 or so thousand illegal immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers within Malaysia's borders. Will it create something of an incentive for the government to try to improve the treatment of those asylum-seekers and unauthorised arrivals?

DOMPOK: I think I would like to see what is being done there, the cooperation between Malaysia and Australia as the beginning for this type of initiatives and I think certainly Malaysia would like I think within its means to do whatever it can for people who are in transit from Asia to Australia or any other country that they aspire to reside, and I think Malaysia has provided this type of facilities in the past and is now helping out in a much bigger way perhaps this time round.