Global Courant
SYDNEY – For the past decade, Australia has sent asylum seekers to Nauru and detained them on the small Pacific island under an internationally condemned scheme for dealing with illegal immigrants arriving by boat.
In June, it quietly took the last refugee from Nauru, one of the smallest countries in the world, and flew him to Brisbane. He is reportedly being held in hotel detention and is seeking resettlement in Canada.
The move marked the end of offshore processing in Nauru, despite Australia’s continued commitment to its costly – and controversial – system of offshore detention.
The federal government first began sending asylum seekers to detention centers on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea as part of a policy announced in 2001 by former Prime Minister John Howard, leader of the Liberal-National Coalition.
After defeating the coalition in elections, the Labor Party ended detention at sea in 2008, but reopened the centers in 2012 as arrivals of boat people – from countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq – began to increase.
The policy has been in effect ever since.
The detention system at sea has been condemned by human rights organizations and the United Nations as illegal and inhumane.
In Australia, the policy has divided the public debate and put political pressure on the Labor Party, which tends to support a more lenient approach than the Liberal-National coalition.
Defenders of the policy say a tough approach is needed to prevent the influx of asylum seekers.
Britain’s ruling Conservative party is following a scheme based on Australia’s and wants to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, although a British court ruled last week that the policy was illegal.
Since 2012, 4,183 people have been detained in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, according to the Refugee Council of Australia. In addition, 47 children were born into detention in Nauru and two in Papua New Guinea.
But the removal of the last detainee from Nauru to Brisbane does not mean that Australia’s controversial policy is completely over.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Mr Anthony Albanese, whose Labor party was elected in 2022, remains committed to cracking down on asylum seekers.
Indeed, the federal government plans to spend A$485 million (S$437 million) by 2023 on maintaining the empty detention center in Nauru as a deterrent to prospective asylum seekers.
The government expects to spend A$350 million a year in the coming years, even though the detention center is expected to remain empty.
This is a hefty sum to spend in a remote country with a population of around 9,800 and an annual gross domestic product of around A$150 million.
