Australian Immigration Minister tells Al Jazeera he’s open to Nauru-New Zealand refugee resettlement plan

• Says Australia needs to do a better job at explaining its refugee policies.
• Rejects as ‘outrageous’ the suggestion from some that Nauru/Manus are ‘Australia’s Guantanamo Bay’.
• Says former workers should not fear prosecution from talking to the media about conditions in the centres.  

Sydney, 15th September, 2016.

Australia’s Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has said that he would have no objection if Nauru accepted New Zealand’s offer to resettle some of the refugees currently held on Nauru. 

Speaking to Andrew Thomas on Talk to Al Jazeera Dutton said that a deal between Nauru and New Zealand was “an issue between Nauru and New Zealand”.  When pressed as to whether he would have any objection to a such a deal, he said “No” with the qualification that wherever refugees are resettled “… New Zealand or somewhere else, they will not be coming to Australia at any point.”

In the past, Australia has appeared to rule out any possibility of refugees held in its ‘regional processing centres’ in Nauru and Papua New Zealand being settled in New Zealand, despite New Zealand’s government offering resettlement places to them. 

In February, Dutton was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald as saying “the New Zealand proposal as brokered by Julia Gillard with Prime Minister Key basically provided people smugglers with a back door into Australia”.  In 2013 the then Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said resettling refugees in New Zealand would be to put “a bit of Kiwi sugar on the table for people smugglers”.

Mr Dutton’s comments to Al Jazeera appear to suggest that if there were caveats to a resettlement deal which ruled out refugees settled in New Zealand from ever coming on to Australia, then resettlement in New Zealand might be an option for some.

Ends

• TALK TO AL JAZEERA will be broadcast on Saturday 17th September at 2.30pm AEST (3.30GMT)
• For further information please visit: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/