Ex-Detainees Headed for Nauru to Integrate into Local Community

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Hundreds of former immigration detainees, including those with criminal records, might settle freely in Nauru under a $408 million agreement to relocate them to the Pacific island nation.

The Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, announced that the federal government had discreetly finalized a deal with Nauru’s President David Adeang last Friday, to transfer approximately 280 individuals from the NZYQ group to Nauru.

Australia will provide an initial $408 million to Nauru, followed by annual payments of $70 million to support this arrangement.

On Friday, Burke stated that the agreement “includes commitments to ensure the proper treatment and long-term residence of individuals who are not legally permitted to stay in Australia, to be accommodated in Nauru”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mentioned the agreement was not “secret”, although he did not reveal the duration of the deal.

“There are complexities and detail here, including the number of people who go, there’s a range of provisions as part of it,” he told the ABC.

He said there was an agreement between the Australian and Nauruan governments, with arrangements that would be “released appropriately at the same time together”.

A government source has told SBS News that around 280 members of the NZYQ cohort are to be granted visas in Nauru and will live among the local population of around 12,000 people and would not be going into detention.

That decision led to the immediate release of around 150 immigration detainees, with an additional 130 released since then.

Some of the group of non-citizens had serious criminal convictions, while others were in immigration detention for visa issues.

“Anyone who doesn’t have a valid visa should leave the country,” Burke said as he announced the decision.

“This is a fundamental element of a functioning visa system.”

Last year, the government passed a suite of laws that included granting the government additional powers for deportation.

Deal ‘dehumanising’ for asylum seekers

Sanmati Verma, a legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre has criticised it, saying the government was handing itself “extraordinary new powers” to deport the 280 detainees if the bill is passed.

“There is currently, unless they’ve got some other process pending, no barrier to those people being either re detained or sent back to Nauru,” she told SBS News.

Verma said the NZYQ cohort has already served their sentences for past criminal offences, if they have committed any – and punishing them further is unjust.

“It prompts questions regarding the legal rights that our government believes migrants and refugees should have, compared to the rest of the population.

A man in a grey suit and glasses is speaking.

Greens senator David Shoebridge said the Nauru deportation deal is “dehumanising”. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas

“The system has well and truly had its pound of flesh from this group of people, and I think it is high time that we all collectively draw a line,” she said.

Other lawyers have also expressed alarm at the deportation deal, which they say has the risk of being applied more broadly.

Alison Battisson, the director principal and founder of Human Rights for All, said it should be a “red flag” for Australians concerned about the separation of powers and about the “overstep” of the executive into the judiciary.

While discussion of the group has often focused on criminal findings against some of the non-citizens, Battisson said this is a disingenuous misrepresentation.

“They do have visas to be in Australia and the vast majority are on bridging visa Rs, which are given to people who might have character concerns but not necessarily criminal records,” she said.

“There is indeed a significant portion of people in that group with mostly minor criminal records, some dating back to their childhood, who have lived peacefully within the community for ten years or more,” she remarked.

A wooden structure at a distance, labelled 'Nauru fish market,' with cemented land in the foreground.

An upfront payment of $408 million has been assured by Australia to facilitate the movement of ex-detainees to Nauru, with an annual $70 million covering ongoing expenses. Source: AAP / Ben McKay

Greens immigration spokesperson David Shoebridge said it was a “dehumanising deal”.

“On the same week that we are seeing far-right rallies attacking multiculturalism on the streets, we have the Labor Party introducing laws in parliament to strip away the rights of natural justice and entering into yet another dehumanising deal with Nauru, playing into that same rhetoric of dehumanising people seeking asylum and attacking multiculturalism,” he said.

Albanese defended the deal, saying his government makes “no apologies” over finding a way to handle the decision of the High Court.

“These are people who do not have a legitimate reason to stay in Australia. People who have no right to be here need to be found somewhere to go.”