Albanese Government makes secret deportation deal with Nauru for almost half a billion dollars
Refugee organisations have slammed the Albanese Government for making yet another secret deal with Nauru, this time paving the way for mass deportations at a cost to the taxpayer of nearly half a billion dollars initially as well as another $70 million every year.
A statement silently uploaded to the website late Friday afternoon showed that Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has secretly travelled to Nauru to sign an agreement with the Pacific nation. Past agreements with Nauru have been fraught with corruption, and in just August it was revealed that the leader of the notorious Finks bikie gang was promised $40 million in Australian taxpayers’ money for security and policing.
The move gives context to the Government’s attempts this week to sneak laws into the Parliament that would strip the right to fairness from decisions to deport people under this arrangement. They are expected to try to rush the laws through in the coming week.
This secret deal has real life implications for a huge number of people, opening the door to mass, without-notice deportations to harm under the powers the government gave themselves in their brutal Bills passed in the last sitting week of 2024, which have the potential to apply to over 80,000 people, tearing families apart and destroying lives forever.
Jana Favero, Deputy CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said:
“The Albanese government has already thrown $13 billion of Australian taxpayers money down the toilet in these outrageous deals to inflict cruelty on people. These secret deals send one clear message - in Australia, some people will be punished simply because of where they were born. This deal is discriminatory, disgraceful and dangerous. At a time when the entire country has just voted for unity and rejected fear, rather than embrace this and show leadership, the Albanese Government has launched yet another attack on migrants and refugees. An attack that will result in the most significant of outcomes - mass deportation.”
Sarah Dale, Centre Director and Principal Solicitor at the Refugee Advice and Casework Service said:
“Earlier this year it was found by the UN that the Australian Government could not outsource their obligations to Nauru. The Government was found to have breached the human dignity of those it sent there. It's extraordinarily alarming, some months later, the Government proposes to send even more people warehoused offshore in yet another secret backdoor deal. Where does it end? The human cost, including that of family separation under this evolving offshore regime just continues to escalate.”
Bethany Rose from the Visa Cancellations Working Group (a nationwide coalition of lawyers, academics and professionals) said:
“This is policy-making at its worst. It takes Australia down a dangerous path: secret deals, avoidance of scrutiny, without-notice exiling of refugees; and outsourcing of key responsibilities at extreme human cost. We are talking about people’s lives. Like anyone else, these people have served their time and restarted their lives in the communities, recovering after what may be years of indefinite detention. When the Government starts offshoring its citizens into responsibilities and dismantling key legal and accountability protections, we should all be gravely alarmed.”
###
For further information or to request an interview contact Natasha Blucher (ASRC) on +61 412 034 821 or media@asrc.org.au.
For more on the landmark United Nations decision finding Australia had breached the human rights of children arbitrarily detained on Nauru, click here.
