Australia's policy of diverting asylum seekers to Pacific islands hit another snag today after talks with Fiji and Kiribati fell through.
Australia had hoped to convince Fiji to take several hundred unwanted asylum seekers in return for financial aid, but domestic troubles and post-coup pressures in Fiji made that impossible.
The decision has left some 540 people waiting on Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island while the government searches for somewhere other than Australia to send them.
Fiji Foreign Minister Mr Kaliopate Tavola said the government had looked at the boat people proposal favourably but decided against it because of public opposition.
"The proposal will be revisited in the future because the government looked at it favourably. But we also considered the public outcry in Fiji," he said.
Fiji had considered a former leper colony on the island of Makogai as a site for an asylum seeker-processing centre, but today the island's chiefs announced they opposed the centre.
Over 1,000 mostly Afghan and Iraqi migrants have also been shipped by Australia to Nauru and Papua New Guinea to be processed after Canberra struck financial deals with the cash-strapped nations in September and October.