Asylum seekers will be transferred to Nauru by the end of this week, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced today.
Mr Bowen told reporters in Canberra that asylum seekers would
be transferred to the island nation by plane in the ''latter part of
this week''.
As the federal government moves to revive offshore
processing, Mr Bowen this morning signed the legislative instrument
designating Nauru as a regional processing country under the Migration
Act.
The Immigration Minister will move a motion in the House of
Representatives after question time today to ''officially authorise''
the designation.
This will pave the away for up to 500 people to be processed
on the island. Mr Bowen said it was an ''Immigration [Department]
decision'' as to who would be transferred to Nauru.
He would not comment on who would be in the first transfer.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison welcomed the
development but said the government had taken too long to get Nauru up
and working.
"The Coalition has been calling on this for several weeks," he told reporters in Canberra.
Mr Morrison said the Coalition would support the designation
but said he looked forward to seeing government MPs - who had denounced
Nauru for the past decade - admit they got it "horrifically wrong"
when Labor shut down offshore processing in 2008.
Mr Morrison said that there would now effectively be an
"asylum lottery" to decide who went to Nauru but insisted that any
asylum seekers who arrived in Australian waters from this point "must
got to Nauru".
Transfield Services has been contracted to provide cleaning,
catering and security on Nauru and International Health and Medical
Services will provide medical support.
Mr Bowen said the Salvation Army would also be contracted to
work on community liaison, case management and community activities.
He said there were already 10 Salvation Army personnel on the
island and others would follow, but he said they would not be
''proselytising''.
Mr Bowen said he had ''full confidence'' the Salvation Army would provide their services without ''fear or favour''.
Work is also continuing to reopen offshore processing on Manus Island.
At the weekend, Prime Minister Julia Gillard struck a new
written agreement with Papua New Guinea to allow processing on Manus
Island.
Mr Bowen said the next step would be for 30 Australian
Defence Force personnel to be deployed to PNG in the coming days along
with two Immigration Department staff.
This developments come as two Australian navy patrol boats
rescued 80 asylum seekers from a boat that was in distress off the coast
of Java yesterday.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said it was unable
to confirm media reports of a second incident involving the Indonesian
search and rescue agency Basarnas.
Indonesian authorities rescued 54 asylum seekers, including a
women and a baby girl, from a sinking boat near Sulawesi overnight,
according to the ABC.
Four other boats carrying about 240 people have arrived in Australian waters since last Friday.
Almost 2000 people have arrived since the Gillard government announced it would revive offshore processing on August 13.
Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt said it was extraordinary
that the parliament was being asked to approve sending refugees to
another country to be locked up indefinitely.
''We know the government wants to, and has, adopted John
Howard's migration services policy. Are they now going to be responsible for the
enormous amount of suffering that people will incur when they are
detained indefinitely?'' Mr Bandt said.
He said it was worrying that the government was outsourcing the facility to a private company.
The Greens have urged the federal government to set up an
independent expert panel to protect the mental and physical well-being
of asylum seekers sent to Nauru and Manus Island.
The party will table a bill in the Senate today, urging it be dealt with immediately.
Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the
expert panel would have open access to detention facilities and would
report directly to the Parliament every six months.
It would be made up of health professionals, including
psychiatric and childcare experts, and ensure asylum seekers were
treated humanely.
''In the years that refugees were detained on Manus Island
and Nauru, there were many individuals left without assistance,''
Senator Hanson-Young told reporters in Canberra
''At the very least, let's put back some humanity back into this policy.''
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