Nauru processing clearance poses asylum questions


Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 10/09/2012

Reporter: Chris Uhlmann

The Pacific nation of Nauru has been cleared by Federal Parliament to become a regional processing centre for asylum seekers but does the move provide as many questions as answers?


LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: By the end of this week Labor's first lot of asylum seekers will arrive in Nauru for offshore processing. It's a matter of urgency, as we just heard Chris Bowen say, yet we still don't have details about how many will be sent, how long they'll be there or what will happen once that centre's full.

The boats have kept coming since the offshore processing plan was announced, but the Government's banking on a change once the detention centres are operating.

Political editor Chris Uhlmann reports.

CHRIS UHLMANN, REPORTER: Spring is finally warming Canberra, and from the outside, Parliament is a picture of tranquillity. It's less beguiling inside.

SCOTT MORRISON, OPPOSITION IMMIGRATION SPOKESMAN: This government got it horrifically wrong.

CHRIS BOWEN, IMMIGRATION MINISTER: Frankly I don't take the criticism from him very seriously.

CHRIS UHLMANN: This cold and bitter parliament has returned to one of its defining themes: asylum seeker policy.

ADAM BANDT, GREENS MP: We are being asked to approve sending refugees to another country where they will be locked up without knowing how long they'll be locked up for.

CHRIS UHLMANN: The Immigration Minister today signed the document that will allow asylum seekers to be sent into detention on the Pacific island of Nauru. The announcement wasn't so smooth.

CHRIS BOWEN: Security's been improved; I couldn't get in.

(Laughter from assembled press)

CHRIS UHLMANN: The problem at the press conference wasn't the door. It was the long list of questions with no real answers. For example, 2,049 asylum seekers have arrived since the minister said this:

CHRIS BOWEN (August 13): I wanted to make the point very clearly today that anybody who arrives by boat from this moment onwards runs the risk of being processed somewhere else.

CHRIS UHLMANN: So given Nauru will only be able to take a few hundred people until the permanent detention centre is rebuilt and that Papua New Guinea's Manus Island won't be ready for months, just who will be sent offshore?

JOURNALIST: Is it your intention to transfer all the people who've arrived since 13th August to Nauru and Manus Island?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well our position has been made clear in relation to the risk they run. Obviously there are challenges here.

CHRIS UHLMANN: How will the Government decide who stays in Australia for processing and who gets sent to Nauru?

JOURNALIST II: It is essentially a lottery, isn't it, those who are going to be let into Australia and given refugee visas here and those that will be sent to Nauru and Manus Island?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well I wouldn't use that descriptor, David. We have said that people should work on the basis they'll be transferred to a regional processing country if they arrive after 13th August.

CHRIS UHLMANN: There are many other questions, like who will do the refugee processing given the United Nations has refused to be involved? If Australian officials end up doing all the processing, where could refugees be sent other than Australia and how long will those found to be refugees stay on Nauru?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, we've said very clearly that we would move to process on a no-advantage test, which means that people would have the chance for resettlement in Australia after the period would have elapsed that they would've been resettled to Australia had they been waiting for regional processing.

CHRIS UHLMANN: One thing is cheer: the bill for all this is rising. Three contracts were announced today. One to International Health and Medical Services for health care; one to Transfield for all the other services, including security, and one to the Salvation Army for social services.

CHRIS BOWEN: In relation to the IHMS contract, the indication is $22 million for the first six months. In relation to the Transfield Services contract, that is $24.5 million for the first six months.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Parliament resumed today without the Prime Minister as she joined her family in Adelaide to mourn the loss of her father. So Wayne Swan fielded questions in her place and the first was predictable.

TONY ABBOTT, OPPOSITION LEADER: When will the Government admit that unless it also adopts temporary protection visas and turning back the boats where it's safe to do so, the people smugglers will still have a product to sell and the boats will still keep coming?

CHRIS UHLMANN: But if you took that to mean that the Coalition believes Labor's bid to reinstate offshore processing would fail, you'd be wrong.

Are you concerned that if you keep saying that this policy is going to fail, that it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well I haven't said that, Chris.

CHRIS UHLMANN: You seem to be saying that over and over again.

SCOTT MORRISON: Well that's what you're saying, but that's not what I'm saying. So, it would be nice if people actually raised points with things I've said rather than things they've made - like to put in my mouth.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Do you think that what the Government is doing now will succeed in stopping the boats?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well, what I have said consistently, as long as I have been in this role, and what the Coalition has said for more than a decade is you cannot expect Howard Government outcomes without the full suite of Howard Government policy.

CHRIS UHLMANN: The legal instrument designating Nauru as a regional processing country under Australian law was introduced after Question Time.

CHRIS BOWEN: The need to present this designation to Parliament has become a matter of urgency, urgency with resolve, urgency to restore order and save lives.

SCOTT MORRISON: This has been a long time coming.

CHRIS UHLMANN: It is staunchly opposed by the Greens.

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG, GREENS IMMIGRATION SPOKESPERSON: The whole point of offshore processing and this punitive approach of offshore processing is to push people out of sight, out of mind, dumping them anywhere but Australia.

CHRIS UHLMANN: But there's some evidence the Greens' stance might be hurting them, as on the weekend the party suffered significant losses in the New South Wales council elections.

ANTONY GREEN, ABC ELECTION ANALYST: I think what we saw in the council results is something that's been happening in the opinion polls and more generally across Australia in recent months with the - say, not the Greens not winning the Melbourne byelection is that probably their vote has peaked or declined slightly over the last few months. I think that's coincided with the retirement of Bob Brown. It's coincided with the debate over asylum seekers and I think those things are all factoring into the boil going off the Green vote.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Today Labor seized the opportunity to have a go at the Greens.

DOUG CAMERON, ALP BACKBENCHER: On the big issues, I think the Greens fail. I think they've failed on climate change. I think they've failed on asylum seekers.

JOEL FITZGIBBON, ALP BACKBENCHER: We've shone a spotlight on their policy manifesto and I think people are starting to wake up to them.

ADAM BANDT: Labor has to decide who for them the real enemy is. Are they content with turning their arsenal on the Greens and picking up a per cent here and there or do they think that the real enemy is the Coalition?

CHRIS UHLMANN: Given the Greens make no secret of the fact that they hope to replace the Labor Party, it's fair enough that the ALP sees them as the enemy. But it's true that the larger lesson out of NSW is that the big winner was the Liberal Party at Labor's expense.

ANTONY GREEN: The end of the Labor Government in NSW has been cataclysmic for Labor support in the state. It's shown - I think the local government elections have also shown that hollowing out of party membership. There just aren't enough people who are members of the Labor Party anymore. And for the Labor Party to lose the mayoralty of Liverpool to a Liberal is just a sign of how poorly things are going for NSW Labor.

LEIGH SALES: Political editor Chris Uhlmann.