The Australian government is trying to argue that Nauru’s asylum seeker “processing” centre is not a detention centre.
That’s right, the Turnbull government is trying to argue that asylum seekers being held on Nauru against their will are not in fact in detention.
What an utterly cynical move.
As Josh Taylor reports today, the federal government is currently fighting a case in the High Court that hinges on whether it is constitutional for the government to send people from Australia to a foreign country to be detained in centres funded and, effectively, controlled by the Australian government.
As we revealed yesterday, Australia was complicit in Nauru’s snap decision late last week to make its detention centres “open centres” — allowing asylum seekers to apply for leave from these centres 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And now, lawyers for the government are trying to argue that this surprise move means the centres are not in fact detention centres.
If the government wins this case, it has essentially washed its hands of any legal or moral responsibility for the lives of the desperate people it locks up. That will be a dark day for Australia.
If it looks like detention and leaves asylum seekers in legal limbo like detention, it is detention. No amount of white-washing or tricky manoeuvring by the Australian government will change that.
Dear God, How has it come to this . . A freely elected Government of Australia, speaking on behalf of we people, resorts to chicanery!
Almost as bizarre as the previous legislation to remove from the Australian migration zone … err.. Australia.
Yet we claimed the right to intercept a Sri Lankan boat on the High Seas (one of the oldest of internationally agreed concepts between the colonising Euroid nations at the time) kidnap its crew & passengers and detain them for a week on board a RAN vessel.
And the High Court agreed.
The Earl of Stratford wrote, almost half a millenium ago, “Put not thy trust in Princes” after being told he would be executed despite Charles’ assurances.
Should we consider the irony that his surname was Wentworth and this was the lead up to the Civil War which the Republicans won?
The whole twenty square kilometres is a detention centre..
These unfortunate people have been kidnapped and marooned.
Surely the $8000/day per person could be put to better use….
“A Turnbull Government – Trickier than your Abbott Model”
Dubbing incarceration an ‘open centre’ is the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. it’s still a pig.
And it’s still incarceration/detention.