And just finally, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, says it is “gravely concerned by the reports”.
“Although UNHCR is not able to verify the individual incidents raised by the reports, the documents released are broadly consistent with UNHCR’s longstanding and continuing concerns regarding mental health, as well as overall conditions for refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru,” the organisation said in a statement.
UNHCR has observed and reported a progressive deterioration in the situation of refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru through its regular visits since 2012.
“Solutions are now urgently needed.”
I’ll be closing this live blog shortly. Stay tuned to the Guardian website overnight and for the coming days as we continue coverage of the Nauru files and the fallout.
Updated
Here is the full statement from the former Save the Children staff.
ChilOut, an advocacy group campaigning against children in immigration detention, has also expressed concern for the 49 children believed to still be on Nauru in immigration detention.
“These most vulnerable children have been placed in singularly dangerous and shameful environments in Nauru. Australia needs to stop this systematic and institutionalised abuse of children,” said ChilOut’s campaign coordinator and human rights lawyer, Niru Palanivel.
“Report after report has revealed shocking conditions; most are ignored, or paid lip service. But this time something must be done.”
The Australian government must legislate a mandated time limit on child detention, allowing children to be released into an alternative to detention, the End Child Detention Coalition has said.
“We welcomed the Coalition government’s commitment in May of this year to release all children from onshore detention centres, but now it is time to release children from detention on Nauru as well,” said the chair of the group, Leeanne Torpey.
The organisation, which comprises secular and church groups and NGOs, said the average time people spend in onshore and offshore detention hit a record high this year.
“Even short periods of detention are incredibly harmful for children, with extremely high rates of depression and unaddressed trauma exacerbated by detention,” said Torpey.
“These revelations have serious consequences for the 49 children in detention in Nauru. There is an urgent need for transparency and independent oversight of places of immigration detention. Children should never be detained.”
Updated
Files are just the tip of the iceberg - former staff
An astonishing 26 former Save the Children staff, many of whom wrote a number of the incident reports revealed in the Nauru files today, have spoken out in response to the leak.
The former staff, including case managers, social workers, child protection specialists, teachers, and adult, child and youth recreation workers released a joint statement a short time ago and called for the centre’s closure.
‘’It appears from looking through the published database that nowhere near the full extent of the incident reports written on a day to day basis have been released,” said former teacher, Jane Willey.
“What you are seeing here is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Natasha Blucher, a former Save the Children senior caseworker, said none of the signatories were behind the leak or aware of where it came from, but that its release allowed them to speak out.
‘’As the authors of many of these reports, we encourage you to understand that despite the clinical and objective language we have used in our professional roles – these reports document intense suffering experienced by families, children and individuals and are irrefutable evidence of the harm caused by offshore detention.”
Liberal MP Craig Kelly dismissed royal commission calls
We can’t go around having a royal commission every time there’s a media release, the Liberal MP Craig Kelly has told Sky News in response to the Nauru files.
Asked why the federal government had such a powerful reaction to the Don Dale report but hasn’t yet to the Nauru files report, Kelly told host Peter van Onselen the latter had only come out in the past 24 hours.
“It was within 12 hours we had a royal commission into Don Dale,” replied Van Onselen.
“Well obviously it should be looked at, at what we can do to improve the reins of those detention centres. I don’t think we can go around every time there’s an issue, or a media release, having a royal commission,” said Kelly.
“The Don Dale issue was quite significant, very graphic footage, it concerned a lot of people. I think the prime minister did the right thing there.”
Van Onselen: “Isn’t that the issue though? One carried – as you put it and you’re absolutely right – really graphic footage, whereas the other one is reports, but the cameras can’t get in there. There isn’t any photographic evidence. Were there perhaps it would be more likely to elicit the kind of emotive response that leads to the reaction like the PM gave on Don Dale.”
Kelly: “That’s very true. The reality is a royal commission is not a fix-all. It’s one solution to help get to the bottom. The issues on Nauru, I think they’re things we can still look at and get to the bottom of, addressing those problems, not necessarily needing a royal commission.”
Liberal Craig Kelly, asked about Nauru reports, says we can't go around launching a RC every time there's a report into abuse #auspol
— Rashida Yosufzai (@Rashidajourno) August 10, 2016
Updated
Comcare must prosecute over abuses, says legal group
The Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) has called for the federal workplace regulator to prosecute for offences under the Work Health and Safety act.
“It is important to note that this Act applies to Australian activities on Nauru, and it clearly states that workplaces must not only be safe for employees and contractors but any person who is in that workplace. This of course means detainees as well,” said ALA spokesperson and barrister Greg Barns.
Citing a report by the ALA this year on the liability of the immigration and border protection department and their contractors, Barnes said the act was clearly applicable.
“It is not good enough to argue that this is Nauru’s responsibility,” Barns said.
“The Federal Court has found that the government owes a duty of care to refugees on Nauru. Our report also outlined how the WHS Act applies in the offshore immigration regime.”
“Only last month a Royal Commission was instituted to investigate abuse of children in juvenile detention in the Northern Territory after images of abuse in Don Dale were aired.
Asylum seekers and refugees deserve a similar level of scrutiny.”
The “appalling level of trauma and abuse” revealed in the Nauru files are an indictment on the Australian government, Oxfam has said.
“Australia has the capacity to accept more refugees and asylum seekers – vulnerable people who should not be forced to live in traumatic conditions in offshore centres,” said Oxfam Australia’s director of public engagement, Pam Anders.
“Offshore detention comes at a great cost to all involved. The cost to detainees in terms of mental health, wellbeing and psychological harm is immeasurable. There is also a significant financial cost, which is difficult to accurately estimate but is certainly over $1bn.”
Updated
AMA calls for independent health assessment
The head of Australia’s peak medical body, the Australian Medical Association, has called for an independent investigation and assessment of the health and living conditions of every asylum seeker living in offshore detention.
In a statement the AMA said it wants the government to establish a transparent, national statutory body of clinical experts, independent of government, which has the power to investigate and report to the parliament.
“These disturbing reports echo long-held concerns by the AMA about the lack of proper physical and mental health care being provided to people in immigration detention,” the AMA president, Dr Michael Gannon, said.
“The reports detail high levels of trauma and mental illness, especially in children being detained on Nauru. Having children in detention is harmful - it causes physical, psychological, emotional, and developmental harms.
“The AMA has called for all children to be removed from detention facilities and placed into the community, where they can be properly cared for.”
Gannon said the AMA receives regular calls and reports from asylum seekers and their advocates about failings in medical care, and said doctors must be able to speak out on these issues without fear of retribution or prosecution.
“We need greater transparency and we need more clinical input to policies regarding the health of asylum seekers,” he said.
Updated
The Nauru files are the final devastating proof that we urgently need new asylum seeker policy, the Refugee Council of Australia has said.
“Reading the extent and detail of the suffering is sickening: the child abuse, sexual abuse, threats, self-harm and psychological damage Australia’s offshore detention system is having on a daily basis,” said Tim O’Connor, the organisation’s acting chief executive.
“It is not clear that any of these reports have been investigated and there must be justice for those that have raised these extremely troubling claims.”
O’Connor also called for an immediate inquiry, and the transfer of detainees to Australia.
“As the government has done in the Northern Territory when serious abuse has been brought to its attention, there needs to be an independent investigation into all the claims in the Narau files.
“With the success of the government in stopping the arrival of people seeking asylum by boat, there can be no further excuse not to bring these people to immediate safety.”
Updated
“There is undeniable, cumulative evidence that suggests that asylum seeker and refugee children are not safe under existing arrangements on Nauru. The Australian government must take immediate action for children and their families to prevent further harm,” Nicole Breeze, director of policy and advocacy with Unicef Australia, said.
Australia should also do more to assist with resettling refugees from across the region and around the world, Breeze said.
“Australia has unfairly shifted its responsibilities for asylum seekers and refugees to our Pacific neighbours for far too long. We must do our fair share to respond to the world’s worst refugee crisis. Unicef Australia also calls on the government to increase Australia’s humanitarian intake program to 30,000 places.”
Unicef and the Nauruan government have jointly released a report reviewing child protection on Nauru.
While the report is focused on the safety and rights of Nauruan children, the Naurun government and Unicef said: “There is also a need for a considered and appropriate set of measures to prevent and respond to allegations and incidences of abuse of children in the regional processing centre and of children living in Nauruan communities as refugees or unaccompanied minors.”
The report found that the four major protection concerns were physical abuse of children, neglect, witnessing family violence, and sexual abuse. Nauruan police said the three most common issues involving children they encountered were neglect, sexual assault, and incest.
Nauru’s minister for home affairs, Charmaine Scotty, said Nauru had worked hard to reform and improve child protection.
“The republic of Nauru recognises the need for legal and policy reform,” she said. “It acknowledges that some laws date back to colonial times and urgently require revision based on changing circumstances and conditions, including the need to accommodate human rights concessions.”
Scotty said the the review of child protection in Nauru had assisted the government to better address the care and protection needs of children by developing a national child protection policy.
Breeze said it was commendable that the Nauruan government had taken positive steps to improve protections for all children on the island.
“However, the existing body of evidence suggests that it is very difficult to keep children and families with such complex needs safe on Nauru. Nauru and Manus Island were never meant to be medium- to long-term resettlement options.”
Updated
Shorten: this government is addicted to secrecy
The Coalition government is “addicted to secrecy”, sadi the opposition leader, Bill Shorten. Asked a short time ago if he supported calls for a royal commission, Shorten replied:
“The first thing we need to do is for the Turnbull government to carry out Labor’s policy of putting in place an independent children’s advocate. It is really, really disturbing that there have been all of these files – not that they have been released, but what they contain – and if we are going to have offshore detention, it has to be conducted in the safest possible way.
“Just because people are indirectly in the care of Australia doesn’t absolve Australia of ensuring that people are safe. And so these files, I think, again point to the immediate need for an independent children’s advocate.
“This government is addicted to secrecy. Transparency is the best way, I believe, to ensure that people in our care have been properly maintained and Australian standards are being upheld and not undermined in these centres.”
Updated
Peak bodies call for royal commission
The peak body for aid and international development and the peak body for social services in Australia have joined calls for a royal commission to examine the treatment of children on Nauru.
The Australian Council for International Development (Acfid) and the Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss) say the current royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse should immediately examine incidents and allegations raised in the Nauru files.
“We have a royal commission tasked with investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse. In the face of the extraordinary evidence of such abuse and harassment of children in immigration detention in Nauru there must be an investigation into whether this is an explicit breach of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s duty of care,” said Acfid chief executive, Marc Purcell.
Chief executive of Acoss, Cassandra Goldie, said: “The royal commission already has the power to investigate the treatment of children in these centres. With more than 1,000 documented cases of child abuse, including many involving sexual abuse, it is clear the commission must act.”
They also called for the immediate transfer of asylum seeker children and their families on Nauru to Australia.
Updated
The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has just addressed the media in Melbourne and said the Turnbull government cannot claim ignorance of the “institutionalised child abuse, taxpayer-funded sexual assault of women” on Nauru.
Hanson-Young wrote to the then immigration minister, Scott Morrison, in 2014 alleging widespread sexual assault on women and children in Nauru, and said the incident reports published by Guardian Australia today showed those reports were correct.
“This is not new information to Peter Dutton. It’s not new information for Scott Morrison, and I don’t believe it’s new information to Malcolm Turnbull,” she said. “The sad truth of the matter is that the government knowingly turned a blind eye as collateral damage for their stop the boats policy.
“And if you want to be honest about it this government’s policy for stopping the boats is to stop the boats through child abuse. It’s obscene, it’s inhumane, and it’s beneath anything that this country should stand for.”
Hanson-Young said Turnbull’s comment this morning that the incidents were a matter for the Nauruan government were disingenuous when the camps were funded, governed, and staffed by Australians.
“Ministers have known that children have been abused at the hands of people paid for by the Australian taxpayer,” she said. “Ministers have known that. And they have done nothing to protect those children.”
She said a royal commission into the camps was “long overdue” and that detainees, particularly women and children, should be brought to Australia as a “matter of urgency”.
She compared the Australian government’s efforts to stem information from Nauru and Manus Island to the Catholic church’s silencing of sexual abuse victims, which prompted the current royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.
“The cover-up is astounding in regards to all of these incidents,” she said. “The gagging of staff, the gagging of independent advocates, the locking out of media from these detention centres has allowed abuse to fester.”
From the experience of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, she said: “We know that when we cover this stuff up, when we intimidate people from speaking up, abuse festers and children suffer.”
Updated
Labor has renewed calls for an independent children’s advocate after the release of the Nauru files.
“These troubling reports are clear indications that the Turnbull government’s management of offshore detention facilities fails to meet Australia’s obligation to provide safe, dignified and humane treatment for all people seeking asylum,” said the opposition spokesman on immigration, Shayne Neumann.
“The culture of secrecy that the Turnbull government has cultivated needs to end. The Turnbull government must reveal whether these serious and disturbing alleged incidents of abuse have been investigated and the outcomes of those investigations.
“Further, the Turnbull government must find a durable and secure third country resettlement arrangement as a matter of priority.”
Updated
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has called for a royal commission.
.@sarahinthesen8 addressing media in Melbourne just now. Seconded #BringThemHere, called for royal commission pic.twitter.com/bAFwG2XX0b
— Calla Wahlquist (@callapilla) August 10, 2016
.@sarahinthesen8: "I don't buy for a moment this argument from the prime minister this morning that this is a matter for Nauru." #naurufiles
— Calla Wahlquist (@callapilla) August 10, 2016
SHY:Scott Morrison has known since 2014 that children were being sexually assaulted and that women were being sexually assaulted on Nauru.
— Calla Wahlquist (@callapilla) August 10, 2016
Morrison: reports are allegations, not findings of fact
A little more from that press conference with Turnbull and the former immigration minister, now treasurer, Scott Morrison.
My colleague Paul Karp has caught the exchange between Guardian reporter Paul Farrell and the two politicians.
Farrell: The Guardian has published more than 2,000 incident reports from Nauru today that show that child abuse allegations and sexual assault allegations have continued well beyond the Nauru Senate inquiry and the Moss inquiry commissioned by the treasurer. Why has the government allowed these incidents to continue?
Turnbull: As you know, and Scott as a former immigration minister may want to add to this, but we continue to support the Nauru government to provide for the health, welfare and safety of all transferees and refugees on Nauru. The material that’s been published will be examined. It’s not clear over what time period it relates, at least not in the report that I saw. It will be carefully examined to see if there are any complaints there or issues there that were not properly addressed.
Morrison: I note the incidents reports, as you know Paul, are reports of allegations, they are not findings of fact in relation to an incident. And the reporting system that was put in place was to monitor what those allegations are and provide an opportunity to follow up and discussion both at the centre level and between governments, and that’s their purpose. It’s important to stress that incidents reports of themselves aren’t a reporting of fact. They are a reporting that an allegation has been made.
Farrell: You commissioned a royal commission into the Don Dale events within 12 hours. What will it take you to be shocked about what is happening on the detention centres on Nauru when you have primary evidence from guards and case workers saying children are being abused?
Turnbull: As I said, just to reiterate what Scott said as well, the matters that are referred to here in these incidents reports will be reviewed to see whether they – whether and to what extent they have been dealt with. This is a – the Australian government provides support to the government of Nauru and their police force in dealing with complaints of this kind and they have the responsibility for responding to them and dealing with them.
Updated
There are obvious parallels being drawn between the Four Corners report last month on alleged mistreatment and abuse of detainees inside the Don Dale juvenile detention centre in the Northern Territory, and the Nauru files.
Both shine light and reveal the shocking extent of issues inside the respective centres. Both follow years of reporting which failed to get any significant government response.
Within a day of the Don Dale report, Turnbull had called a royal commission. What will happen today?
Elaine Pearson, the Australian director of Human Rights Watch, said the Don Dale images had shocked the Turnbull government into action, and called for the same response to the evidence presented in the Nauru files and in other investigations.
“The fact that the number of serious incidents has not declined but continued steadily, and in some cases escalated, is further proof that the failure to address abuses is a deliberate policy of the Australian government to deter further boat arrivals,” Pearson told Guardian Australia.
“Australia’s policy of deterrence is premised on making people in offshore locations suffer. This policy is inhumane and irresponsible, and it means refugees and asylum seekers remain vulnerable to further abuse and mistreatment. Men, women and children need to be removed from Nauru immediately.”
Hugh de Kretser, the executive director of the Human Rights Law Centre, told Guardian Australia: “Nothing excuses the failure to act. There is a real hypocrisy in the fact we have two royal commissions currently afoot – one into institutional child sexual abuse and another into youth detention centres – and yet at the very same time we’re warehousing children on Nauru in conditions that allow this kind of abuse to thrive.”
Updated
AAP reports that the Liberal frontbencher Karen Andrews said no one wanted to see women and children treated poorly under any circumstances.
The Australian federal police had been working with Nauru police to strengthen their capability when it came to dealing with severe incidents, she said.
“We would encourage anyone to report any incidents they are aware of,” Andrews told Sky News.
She hailed the federal government’s efforts to stop the flow of asylum seeker boats and resulting deaths at sea.
Updated
The leak is beginning to make international news, with reports on the BBC, the Telegraph, the New Zealand Herald, and German newspaper Zeit Online.
Human rights groups call for immediate transfer
Guardian Australia reporter Calla Wahlquist has been at a press conference called by a group of human rights and refugee advocacy groups.
Australia’s peak refugee advocacy bodies have called for immigration detainees on Nauru and Manus Island to be moved to Australia after Guardian Australia’s reports on abuse there, saying documents published on Wednesday showed an “immediate humanitarian crisis”.
“The documents provide graphic evidence of the harm we are inflicting on innocent people, including children,” the Human Rights Law Centre’s director, Hugh de Kretser, said at a joint press conference in Melbourne on Wednesday.
“We are responsible for this harm. We must act now to bring them here to safety.”
Shen Narayanasamy, the human rights director for GetUp!, said a royal commission was necessary to discover the extent of abuse in the camps but establishing an inquiry must come second to bringing people to safety.
“Right now, facing an immediate humanitarian crisis, the only plausible, moral thing to do is to bring these people to Australia immediately,” she said.
“After that point, most definitely we need a royal commission. Clearly if a Senate inquiry is not able to pick up this level of abuse … then we have a serious question here in Australia about the extent of the cover-up in relation to Manus Island and Nauru, and only a royal commission has the power to do that.”
Jana Favero, from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said the reports “confirmed a lot of unofficial reports” she had seen in past three years.
“It’s echoing the 4am phone calls that we have been receiving from Nauru and Manus from desperate, broken people,” she said. “People that our government has broken.”
Mat Tinkler, from Save the Children, said his organisation was surprised by the publication of the Nauru files today but not by the content of the files, which he said echoed concerns it had raised with government on a number of occasions.
“The last thing that Save the Children was advised [by the federal government] was that their concerns were noted and that they would be taken into consideration,” Tinkler said.
The government had adequate information to act on human rights abuses on Nauru but lacked the political will, he said.
Misha Coleman, from Australian churches refugee taskforce, called on the government to exercise the same political will it used to institute a royal commission into youth detention in the Northern Territory and investigate its own practices on Nauru.
She also called for a royal commission.
Heads of refugee advocacy agencies call for all refugees in Manus and Nauru to be brought to Australia #naurufiles pic.twitter.com/4chw5iCZh7
— Calla Wahlquist (@callapilla) August 10, 2016
Updated
The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was asked about the Nauru files a short time ago.
PM @TurnbullMalcolm says the government will carefully examine #naurufiles
— Lenore Taylor (@lenoretaylor) August 10, 2016
Updated
Gillian Triggs, the Australian human rights commissioner, has responded to the report, urging the Australian public to “speak out and talk up”.
“We really need the public’s attention to ensure that our politicians change the policy. This is unsustainable, and of course extremely expensive to the Australian taxpayer.”
If media had access to the immigration centres, the Australian public could be moved in the same way they were over the Don Dale juvenile detention abuses broadcast last month.
“Our democratic system depends on transparency and access by our journalists and also by other community groups who can speak up and take photographs. That is what really moves the public, when they actually see, preferably on video, how these children are being treated.”
Updated
Today the Guardian published the Nauru files, a collection of more than 2,000 leaked documents from inside Australia’s offshore immigration processing centre on Nauru.
The Nauru files have revealed the extent of the trauma and abuse which occurred over more than two years, and sparked calls for a royal commission or federal inquiry, as well as renewed pleas to bring all remaining detainees to Australia.
I’ll bring you all the reaction to the reports throughout the day.
You can read our opening report on the leak, what it contains, and what it means, here.
The interactive, a harrowing exploration of the documents and data, is here.
Updated
