Summary
So where are we this afternoon? Not much further than this morning, with the governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea at a stalemate over who is responsible for the 850-odd detainees on Manus Island. There are cross party and internal splits, but as yet no clear plan about what anyone is going to do.
Here are the key points to mull over before I end the blog for today.
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The Manus Island detention centre will close at some point soon, after the Supreme Court of PNG deemed the incarceration of asylum seekers illegal.
- PNG has said Australia is to find alternative arrangements for the detainees, and that it was never part of the agreement that they would hold people for so long.
- Peter Dutton maintains PNG is responsible for the detainees, and they will not settle permanently in Australia.
- PNG high commissioner to Australia, Charles Lepani, says discussions will start next week on working out a plan to close the centre. “It’s an issue Australia has to deal with, that’s our position,” he said.
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Both Nauru and Christmas Island could be used to house the men, Dutton has indicated, but he said the first step was to allow PNG to work through the court judgement.
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The offshore system faces another legal challenge next week, with a supreme court case hearing an application for the men held on Manus Island to be compensated for their three years of illegal detention.
- Broadspectrum, the company which runs the centre, has placed its shares in a trading halt.
- Labor has called on the Australian government to find a way to keep the centre operating in PNG, and Dutton told 2GB “open centre-style arrangement... may deal with some of the concerns the judges had”.
- Opposition leader Bill Shorten said his party supported offshore processing, but it was never meant to be indefinite. He labeled the Coalition’s handling of the situation a “trainwreck”.
- In contradiction to comments made by Malcolm Turnbull, Dutton revealed this morning the government has been aware the centre would close for months.
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Turnbull did not detail the government’s plan, but reiterated no one would be settled here and said “a strong Australia is a secure Australia”.
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Three Labor MPs, Melissa Parke, Lisa Singh and Sue Lines, have broken ranks and called for the men to be brought to Australia. “We have caused them enough suffering already. This is a sick game and it needs to end,” Parke told Fairfax.
- On Nauru the 23-year-old man who set himself alight yesterday morning was today flown to Brisbane for medical treatment. He is in a critical condition, and Doctors for Refugees has criticised the length of time it took to evacuate.
- Detainees report an increase in acts of self harm on Nauru, and despair on Manus as people follow Australian news on the fallout of the PNG court decision.
- The Refugee Council of Australia has called for “cooler heads” to prevail in Australia’s asylum policies, and argues the PNG Supreme Court has given the government an opportunity to re-think its offshore detention policy.
Updated
“Minister Dutton is grasping at straws to suggest that the men detained on Manus could be moved to Nauru,” says Natasha Blucher, advocacy coordinator for the Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network.
“Nauru is also currently in meltdown and is unable to sustain the refugee and asylum seeker population that is there already, let alone another large cohort of psychologically damaged men from Manus Island.”
She said with the “overwhelming” number of assaults, acts of self-harm, and suicide attempts on Nauru, it was impossible to add another large group of people to the mix.
“The harm being caused to both populations on the island is beyond tenable”.
Australia’s offshore detention regime on PNG faces another legal challenge next week, with the possibility the supreme court in Port Moresby could order that the men held on Manus Island be compensated for their three years of illegal detention.
A second challenge to the constitutionality of the offshore detention arrangements on Manus has been brought by lawyer Ben Lomai, on behalf of more than 300 of the detained men.
The case is before the supreme court Monday.
Read more here.
Tonight Peter Dutton will appear on 7.30 (ABC, 7.30pm), and former prime minister Tony Abbott will be a guest on the Bolt Report (Sky, 7pm).
With immigration policy set to loom even larger in the federal election campaigns, the current situation is a still political gift for the Coalition, writes Phillip Coorey for the AFR.
On boats, no matter how bad the news, having the issue in the public domain benefits the Coalition because it was Labor’s policy reversals which led to the surge of arrivals between 2008 and 2013 and the need to revisit John Howard’s Pacific Solution and reopen the camps on Nauru and Manus Island.
Election after election has shown that the majority of voters backs the Coalition on this issue. That is just the cold hard politics.
Broadspectrum shares in trading halt
From AAP: Shares in Broadspectrum, which operates the federal government’s offshore detention centres, have been placed in a trading halt following the Papua New Guinea government’s announcement that it will shut the Manus Island unit.
The company, previously named Transfield Services, says it requested the trading halt until Friday and will make a statement about the likely impact of the PNG Supreme Court ruling.
Broadspectrum, which has been fending off a takeover bid from Spanish infrastructure giant Ferrovial, had its contract to operate the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres extended by 12 months in February and was among the bidders for a new five-year deal.
The centre in its current form will be closing. We know that. PNG says Australia must make arrangements for detainees. Australia says it is PNG’s responsibility. The men may go to Nauru. They may go to Christmas Island. They may go to a third country, or even stay on Manus Island in an “open centre”.
The Coalition is struggling to get its story right, Labor is reportedly splitting in the ranks. Both parties are attacking each other over policy.
Throughout this back and forth there is one group of people listening to every word - the men inside the Manus Island detention centre.
But Behrouz Bouchani, a Kurdish-Iranian journalist who has continued to report from Manus while in detention, told Guardian Australia the mood is changing after initial jubilation at the court decision, and people are now “in a bitter and heavy silence” and worried they wil lbe sent to Nauru.
“It is incredible that Australia is playing us and we are victims under propaganda before the election,” he said.
“Australia is doing an incredible game with 900 innocent men. It is incredible that Peter Dutton is thinking about the Nauru option. I want to say that you can not do it because people in Nauru are in a critical situation now and if you exile 900 men there you will cause that place [to become] even worse than a hell.”
“This government shows to us that it could do any cruel action because of power. The Manus prisoners have been struggling with life and death during last three years and it is a real torture.”
Updated
To PNG domestic politics now. Northern province governor, Gary Juffa, has lambasted both the Australian government and PNG leader, Peter O’Neill. He described the situation as the lowest point in PNG’s short time as an independent nation, and said PNG’s sovereignty was sold on the day Rudd and O’Neill signed their agreement.
Juffa is a member of a minor PNG political party, People’s Movement for Change. He had this to say, care of the PNG Post Courier:
This ill-conceived effort at shirking one’s international responsibilities by a failed Australian Prime Minister aided and abetted by a failing PNG Prime Minister was never in the best interests of Australians, Papua New Guinea genuine asylum seekers and humanity.
Never before had our sovereignty become so prostituted by one man inconsiderate of the dignity of a people in exchange for a few coins and buildings.
They should all simply hang their collective heads in shame and resign. They should never hold public office where they may concoct or even consider decisions that demean us as a people and sell our sovereignty and dignity.”
Juffa has previously described the PNG-Australia deal as neo-colonialist grovelling.
The Refugee Council of Australia has called for “cooler heads” to prevail in Australia’s asylum policies, and argues the PNG Supreme Court has given the government an opportunity to re-think its offshore detention policy.
“With the Manus Island ‘solution’ and Australia’s offshore processing system crumbling under legal challenge and human despair, it’s time to set politics aside and put humanity first,” RCOA chief executive Paul Power said.
“The collapse of Manus Island detention provides the Turnbull Government with the opportunity to end the perversity of our current policies which have caused our neighbours to act illegally and inflicted immense pain on those stuck in an interminable limbo.”
Power said the men from Manus Island should be brought to Australia for assessment and, if found to be refugees, resettled here. He said the government should look to implement regional solutions to the asylum seeker issue, working co-operatively with neighbours such as Indonesia and Malaysia,
“No one wants to see desperate people get on leaky boats. However, better answers can only come through calm planning and cooperation between nations, the sort of cooperation we saw three decades ago in response to the Indochinese refugee crisis.”
Disunity within Labor over offshore processing?
James Massola reveals in Fairfax newspapers that three Labor MPs – lower house member Melissa Parke, and senators Lisa Singh and Sue Lines – have called for the men on Manus Island to be brought to Australia, in the wake of the PNG supreme court’s judgement that their detention is illegal.
“It’s inevitable that the government will need to have another plan for what is going to happen and the most logical thing to do is to bring those people to Australia,” Parke told Fairfax.
“We have caused them enough suffering already. This is a sick game and it needs to end.”
After stern defences of Labor’s commitment to offshore processing from party leader Bill Shorten and shadow immigration minister Richard Marles, this is a significant departure. There has been growing disquiet within Labor’s left faction over the hardline approach to asylum issues.
Parke, a lawyer for the United Nations before she entered parliament, has long been a critic of offshore processing. She is retiring at the election.
Updated
More details about conditions on Nauru: cases of the mosquito-borne Zika virus have been confirmed on Nauru by Australia’s department of immigration and border protection (in a submission to the senate). There are seven asylum seeker and refugee women on Nauru who are currently pregnant.
“Every precaution is being taken to protect transferees against contracting the virus,” the department says. “Insect repellent with higher DEET content has recently been provided to transferees in Nauru and Manus for use.”
Detention centre management also undertakes vector control practices, including regular fogging operations and mosquito larvae surveying and monitoring.
Zika virus has spread rapidly, in particular across southern and central American countries, in recent months. Several governments in the Americas have advised women in affected areas not to get pregnant for two years, because of the suspected link between Zika virus and microcephaly, a serious birth defect. At least 4,000 babies have been born with microcephaly, which results in babies having much smaller-than-usual heads, in Brazil alone.
Doctors for Refugees have criticised the time taken to transport 23-year-old Iranian refugee, Omid, who suffered extensive burns after self-immolating on Nauru on Wednesday.
Co-founder and convenor of Doctors for Refugees, Dr Barri Phatarfod, said despite statements from the government that Omid would be airlifted to Australia Wednesday evening, a flight wasn’t arranged until Thursday morning.
“Despite Minister Dutton’s statement last night that Omid would be airlifted that evening to Australia, there was still no confirmed flight at midnight last night. The family in Nauru were told that DIBP was unable to arrange a pilot for the medivac.
“We understand a flight arrived at 6.30 this morning, some 22 hours after the severe burns and leaving Omid susceptible to life threatening infection as well.
“Coming so soon after the 4 Corners revelation of DIBP delays in the tragic case of Mr Kehazaei, it’s quite incredible that this should happen.”
Hamid Kehazaei, an Iranian asylum seeker held on Manus Island, died in September 2014 after a small infection in his leg turned septic. Delays in moving him off the island, and failure to treat him with the appropriate antibiotics, have been consistently given as reasons why his treatable condition proved fatal.
Phatarfod said the extent of Omid’s injuries have made treating him at Nauru hospital difficult.
“One of Doctors for Refugees’ emergency doctors was on the phone to the hospital late last night and understood there were difficulties accessing an intravenous line and maintaining adequate oxygenation of this man while he remained in Nauru hospital.”
Further images and footage showing the extent of Omid’s injuries have been shown to The Guardian. One video shows him conscious at the Nauru hospital and screaming - with severe burns apparent to his arms, legs, chest, and back - while distressed family members plead for assistance for him.
Melissa Davey has just spoken to prominent Australian barrister, human rights and refugee advocate, Julian Burnside, in Melbourne.
He told her it was “fascinating that PNG is waving the flag at Australia, pointing out that something we can all recognise as immoral falls below their human rights standards”.
Burnside said, “Let’s face it, Australia only chose PNG and Nauru as places to warehouse people because we knew they needed the money we could give them. Let’s not shy away from that. That’s the brutal reality of it, and at last their Supreme Court has said ‘No, this falls below our standards of human decency’.”
However, he said he expected Turnbull and Dutton to maintain their hardline stance that detainees will not be coming to Australia.
“They will maintain that hardline stance because Labor is so pathetic on this issue that [opposition immigration minister] Richard Marles is singing from the same song-sheet as Peter Dutton,” he said.
Public sentiment was slowly turning against the government’s immigration and border protection policies, Burnside said, pointing to the mass protests against children in detention and the movement to ‘Let the stay’. But he feared the sentiment was not widespread enough to lead to a change in policy.
Melbourne has always been more ‘bolshie’ than most cities on these issues, but I think what we need to change in all of this is the sentiment of the public at large to make them recognise that since Tampa, politicians have been lying to us by calling asylum seekers illegal, and by saying that we need to be protected from them. Scott Morrison [the former immigration minister] brought this into sharp focus in 2013 when he renamed the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
Australians think that keeping asylum seekers in offshore detention means that criminals are being kept away from us to protect us. Which would be sensible if it were true, but it is completely false and the government has played on this falsity. Labor may not be calling them illegal, but they are also not contradicting the government. It will be very hard for either of the parties to say; ‘Sorry, we’ve been lying to Australians’, but until we get that change in sentiment Australians will go on thinking we are being protected from criminals and terrorists.
What does get a sharp response from people though is when you see images of children behind the wire. It’s hard to look at a photo of a five-year-old wandering in the dirt in... Nauru and think ‘She’s a criminal that we have to be protected from’.
Labor leader Bill Shorten has held a press conference, describing the government’s handling of offshore processing as a “shambles” and a “trainwreck”.
He said he supported regional processing, but that processing must not be allowed to degenerate into “indefinite detention”.
“Labor supports regional processing, we do not want to see people-smugglers back in business ... there is a unity ticket to defeat the people smugglers.”
But he said the Coalition government had no roadmap for working out offshore detention, despite being aware for months the supreme court’s decision was coming and likely to rule the offshore processing was illegal.
“Mr Dutton let the cat out of the bag when he said he expected this and was aware of this for months – they need to do this day job and sort out this mess.”
It was a Labor government, under Julia Gillard, which re-established offshore processing on Manus Island, signing a memorandum of understanding with PNG.
Updated
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has responded to Dutton’s suggestion Manus Island could become an “open centre” in the same style as Nauru, in order to get around the supreme court findings.
“It is fanciful for Peter Dutton to suggest that all they need to do is open the gates. It will simply turn what is a hell hole on an island into an island hell. Manus Island is closed. It’s been found to be illegal and it’s time the government admitted it.”
Hanson-Young also dismissed third-country options.
“The rest of the world is managing with the largest numbers of people seeking asylum than we have ever had since World War II,” she said.
“You’ve got countries like Canada opening up their hearts and their arms to people who need help, and you’ve got Australia saying a small number of people can’t come here. We are a laughing stock on the international stage.”
Updated
Below is Dutton’s interview with Channel Nine’s Today Show on the contradicting statements from him and Turnbull around how long they have been planning for this week’s events.
Dutton says he knew about Manus Island closure since 2015, in contradiction with PM's comments. #auspol #9Today https://t.co/bZbPyzyKOI
— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) April 27, 2016
Last night Melissa Davey attended a talk by Roderick St George, a Manus Island G4S security manager-turned-whistleblower. Below is her dispatch from Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre.
A former G4S security senior manager on the island in 2013, Roderick St George resigned from the position after one month and returned to Australia, distressed by what he had seen.
He then exposed the abuse of detainees to the media, saying assault victims were knowingly left in the same compound as their abusers as there are not adequate facilities to separate them. He faced prosecution for exposing the situation.
Speaking on the Papua New Guinea’s supreme court finding that detention of asylum seekers on Manus is illegal, St George told the Wheeler audience: “I think Australia has been lecturing Papua New Guinea for many years about how to enter the civilised world. So this is quite ironic”.
St George said he suffered significant post-traumatic stress from what he saw on Manus, and from the fear of prosecution he faced for speaking out. He said he suffered regular nightmares. He also spoke of his distress at being unable to help a boy who was raped.
“There was no facility for him to receive the proper treatment or to be kept safe,” St George said, adding that the boy was placed back with his abuser.
“I spoke to my operations manager, and he was very nonplussed about it. He didn’t have a lot of sympathy for the situation they [asylum seekers] were in.”
Updated
Turnbull: a strong Australia is a secure Australia
The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has been asked, if a contingency plan for the PNG supreme court decision has indeed been in the works for many weeks, why isn’t it ready to go now?
He doesn’t entirely answer, and it is the last question of the press conference, so no further pushing.
The prime minister wants to make a couple of points:
The detainees will not come to Australia. “That is absolutely clear and the PNG government knows that, understands that very well.”
The centre and its residents “are the consequence of Labor’s failure to maintain the strong border protection policies that they had inherited but then discarded.”
He is looking forward to discussions with PNG, but the Australian government will seek to ensure detainees can “either settle in PNG, as they have the opportunity to do, or in third countries”.
“If we want to have secure borders, if we want to ensure that women and children are not drowning at sea, put into leaky, dangerous boats by criminals and gangsters, by people smugglers, then we must have secure borders, and we do and we will, and they will remain so as long as I am the prime minister of this country.”
End of press conference.
Updated
Looking at Nauru for a moment.
Dutton yesterday confirmed there were at least four people who had self-harmed in the past day or two, as well as Omid. He also confirmed three people who had been receiving medical treatment in Brisbane had been medically cleared and returned to Nauru.
This morning, Guardian Australia has been told one of the women sent back also self-harmed. She is currently in the IHMS medical facility. A pregnant woman also hurt herself yesterday, according to people on the island.
A number have reported worsening mental health among refugees and asylum seekers, particularly during a visit by UNHCR representatives.
“People are doing something every day on Nauru,” one man told Guardian Australia, saying he was aware of at least eight incidents on Wednesday alone.
“There was some other incidents happen in the other settlement site. A woman, she was pregnant.”
Of Omid’s act of self-immolation, he said, “He did it in front of everyone.”
“This is how we live here. He just wanted to show the world and UNHCR.”
“There is no future here. There is nothing here,” the man, who has refugee status, said of Nauru.
Asked if there was any way he could be happy living on Nauru, if the living conditions, security, and support improved:
“After three years of punishment, after three years of depression and bad mental and physical health, would you like to stay even in a five-star prison?
“There are refugees and they are killing themselves here. This is not a place for refugees to come and live here. Even the government of Australia knows about it, and that is why they give Cambodia as an option.”
Updated
Bring detainees back to Australia, says Triggs
Over on ABC24 the Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Gillian Triggs has raised concerns with the prospect of Manus detainees being housed on Christmas Island, where the detention centre population is largely non-asylum-related.
“People who are quite lawfully claiming rights as asylum seekers and refugees being in the same camps as those who have committed criminal offences and are subject to deportation, typically to New Zealand but of course to other countries as well, on visa cancellations,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s a solution to keep warehousing these men. They’ve been held for years and they are in absolute despair about their futures. We need the political leadership to say ultimately we must accept our responsibility to bring these men back to Australia.”
Updated
Manus detention centre could stay, says Dutton
Last bit from the Hadley interview: Dutton says he spoke with prime minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning and the PM is “100%” behind him.
Hadley raises the issue of foreign aid Australia gives to PNG.
“Can’t we use it as a little carrot or stick, and say ‘now listen fellas I know the Supreme Court made a decision but there are more things at play here than Manus Island’,” suggests Hadley.
Can’t we tell PNG that the aid will continue but it’s “quid pro quo and we can’t stick money into your joint if you’re not going to support us” he says.
Dutton says Australia will make its position very clear and will work through the situation with them.
“I think there is an opportunity for the detention centre to remain in place in a different form.”
A few more key comments from Dutton’s interview with Hadley just now.
Despite comments from PNG representatives - which I’ll bring more on shortly - Dutton is maintaining that Australia is not bound at all by the PNG supreme court ruling, and that the 850 men are not Australia’s responsibility.
The supreme court ruling doesn’t require the centre to be closed immediately. An “open centre-style arrangement... may deal with some of the concerns the judges had” and allow a centre to continue operating.
Australia will work with PNG on the options “available to them”, says Dutton, but the starting and finishing point is No Settlement In Australia.
There is a “difficulty” with Iranian detainees as their country own’t take forced returns. “The PNG government will have to sort that out, and it’s an issue for them.”
Dutton is asked about Omid, whom Guardian Australia understands is on his way to Brisbane for treatment.
“It’s a terrible situation, nobody wants to see anyone self harm,” Dutton says.
Omid is in a “very, very dire situation” and the government has sympathy for him and his family, “but the government is not going to change its policy”.
“People aren’t going to stay permanently in our country, even if they come here temporarily for medical treatment.”
Updated
This will be dealt with “in the best interests of our country,” says Dutton.
The minister is predicting it will take a couple of months to go through the supreme court decision and work out the options, which takes us beyond the next election.
He says Labor, and particularly Marles’s response, has been “ridiculous”. Hadley calls it acting like a “headless chook”.
“They created this problem, Ray. They created drownings at sea,” says Dutton.
Updated
“We’ve paid the PNG government a lot of money,” says Hadley.
“A lot of money,” agrees Dutton.
Peter Dutton is talking to Ray Hadley on 2GB.
He’s saying there’s plenty of room on Nauru “because we stopped the boats”. But he adds “we don’t need to be talking about Christmas Island or Nauru or anywhere else” because PNG has to go through the supreme court judgement and look at its options.
“The 850 people under the MOU [memorandum of understanding] are the responsibility of the PNG government,” he tells Hadley.
Which is a little contrary to what PNG says.
Updated
Refugee flown to Brisbane after self-immolation
23-year-old Omid, who suffered severe burns after setting himself alight yesterday, has reportedly left Nauru in an air ambulance, bound for a Brisbane hospital.
He remains in a critical condition, and heavily sedated. Before yesterday’s protest, he had reportedly told other asylum seekers he intended to burn himself in protest, but that the threat wasn’t taken seriously.
Updated
Some more detail on Dutton’s latest comments.
The minister told Sky News this morning Nauru did have the capacity to take additional detainees, but he was still talking with the PNG government about options.
Labor spokesman Richard Marles has also been pushing for the government to work out an arrangement to keep the PNG arrangement going in some form.
The supreme court decision was comprehensive, and dismissed several amendments made by the government previously which had sought to cement the legality of the detention centre. Any new change now would have to be much stronger to get around the court’s findings.
Regarding the Christmas Island option, Dutton has been specific in his language, saying that none of the men from Manus would ever be “permanently settled” in Australia.
That language would seem to leave open the possibility for all, or some, of the men from Manus being transferred to the Christmas Island detention centre.
Read more here.
Updated
Summary
Good morning,
Two days ago Australia’s immigration policy looked set in stone ahead of the July election.
Then the supreme court of Papua New Guinea ruled the detention of asylum seekers and refugees was illegal and contrary to the country’s constitution and migration law.
In response, the PNG prime minister, Peter O’Neill announced the Manus Island centre will close, and said it was Australia’s responsibility to find alternative arrangements for those of the 850 male detainees who did not settle in PNG as refugees.
Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, had previously sought to distance his government from such responsibility.
Nauru has reached an “emergency situation”, advocates have said, after a young man set himself alight in front of UNHCR representatives yesterday, and a number of other asylum seekers and refugees attempted self-harm.
Tensions and desperation among those on Nauru has been exacerbated by the news out of PNG, people on the island have said.
Which brings us to this morning.
Dutton has flagged the possibility of sending the Manus men to Nauru or Christmas Island.
“There is capacity [on Nauru] but we’re talking with the PNG government about what options are available in PNG and we’ll continue those discussions with them,” he said this morning.
PNG high commissioner to Australia, Charles Lepani, says discussions will start next week on working out a plan to close the centre, but he maintained that responsibility for the detainees not settling in PNG was Australia’s, which must take them back.
We’ll bring you developments throughout the day. Stay with us.
Updated
