Australia has begun negotiating with foreign detainees on Nauru, marking the start of a controversial deal with the tiny nation of the Pacific Stand.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Minister of Home Affairs, Tony Burke confirmed that “the first transfer took place” last Friday, although they are people who have been deported.
The deal was struck after Australia’s highest court ruled it could not arrest 358 people, many of whom had been found guilty of crimes, to force their release into the community.
Human Rights groups criticized the deal, which is expected to cost $2.5BN (£1.64BN; $1.23BN).
The Australian government has repeatedly refused to release details of the NZZZQ Cohort deal, and refugee advocates say it contradicts the country’s human rights obligations.
Laura John, from the World Organization for Human Rights told SWS News The plans were “shrouded in secrecy from the start”.
“We don’t know if the deportee has left family behind in Australia, or if they need medical care that is not available through Nauralia, or if there are still ways to file visa appeals in Australia.”
The NZZQ Cohort refers to a group of prisoners who were released into the Australian community after a high court decision in 2023 found that the government’s power to detain them was unlimited.
Most of them had been convicted of serious crimes including assault, drug trafficking and murder, resulting in their Australian visas being cancelled.
The Australian government found itself in a difficult situation – it cannot send the original migrants back to their countries for fear of persecution or because their government will not accept them – but they are also facing a heavy attack from the public to release them to the public.
Last year, the government, under Prime Minister Anthony Albanisese, made changes to the Migration Act, strengthening its power to deport citizens, in a move critics described as “brutal”.
It also includes paying third countries to transport deportees to Australia.
Australia turned to Nauru, and under an agreement that was concluded earlier this year, tourists were given 30 years that allowed them to work on the island and meet freely with its 12,500 inhabitants.
The first transfer results in a maximum payment of $408m to re-enter the Nauru group.
Apart from these details, little is known about the agreement.
“People are being secretly sent to Nauru, and important aspects of the Agreement continue to emerge from the Australian public”, the spokesman for the Greens group, David Shoebridge, told the Australian media.
Criticizing the lack of transparency in the program and the “contemptuous silence” of Minister Tony Burke, it was also when the apostles arrived in Zauru, they were about to be sent back to their countries at home.
“It doesn’t matter who you are or where you were born, governments shouldn’t be able to disappear, send you against your will to a country you have connections with,” he said.
Burke defended the arrangement, telling the Australian demolition company that it had inspected the accommodation and health facilities on Nauru and “The level is good”.
“When somebody has come and treated Australians in a way that shows an appalling character, their visas do get canceled and when their visas are cancelled, they should leave,” Burke has previously said.
The agreement is separate from Nauru’s plan to continue Australia’s immigration regime. That program was resurrected following international condemnation of how detainees are treated and housed.
