Gay asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat will be resettled in PNG despite facing prison under local laws that criminalise homosexuality, the attorney-general says.
In Sydney to announce federal funding for the HIV/AIDS Legal Centre, Mark Dreyfus said no group of asylum seekers would be ruled out of the government's new policy to send them to PNG.
"It's a general policy that anyone who arrives in Australia by boat without a visa ... will be transferred to Papua New Guinea," Mr Dreyfus told reporters.
Homosexuality is illegal in Papua New Guinea and can attract a jail sentence of up to 14 years.
"At the same time our minister for immigration Tony Burke has made it very clear that those transfers won't occur until there is appropriate accommodation and appropriate circumstances for everyone who is sent," he said.
Mr Dreyfus said Australia would not pressure PNG about changing its laws.
"We don't think that that's necessary in order for Australia to comply with our international legal obligations and the obligations that we have under the Migration Act.
"I'm not going to give you a running commentary on laws of countries in our region."
Most recently in 2011, the PNG government told the United Nations it had no plans to decriminalise homosexuality.
Mr Dreyfus was at the HIV/AIDS Legal Centre with Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek to announce an additional $80,000 in federal funding over four years.
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