July 19, 2024
The number of refugees being held on Nauru has increased sixfold in six months, raising questions about the future of the detention centre that was empty at one stage last year.
Despite the facility being vacant in June 2023, advocates say there are now 96 people being held on the Pacific island, up from 15 in February.
The detention centre is holding dozens of people who have made it to Australia's coastline by boat, something Opposition Leader Peter Dutton blames on "weak" messaging and a drop in air and sea patrols.
Refugee Council of Australia figures show 273 people were either intercepted at sea or arrived by boat in 2022 and 2023, compared with 174 in the previous five years.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said funding for Operation Sovereign Borders had never been higher.
One detainee currently at the centre, Mohammad Anjum, is one of 39 men from Pakistan and Bangladesh who were found at Beagle Bay on the West Australian coast in February after arriving on a fishing boat from Indonesia.
"They are treating us like animals, like criminals," he told the ABC in a phone call.
"When we ask them how long we will stay here, how long we will go outside, what is our future — no one is saying this."
Mr Anjum said after fleeing political persecution in Pakistan to Indonesia, he found a man who said he could take him to Australia by boat.
"No one [knew] about Nauru. We knew about the detention centre but we didn't know the policy," he said.
Mr Anjum and his fellow boat passengers were taken to Nauru after landing at Beagle Bay, and now face the prospect of being resettled in New Zealand under a deal with that government, or denied refugee status.
Ms O'Neil said the Border Force Commissioner had confirmed publicly that funding for Operation Sovereign Borders, which includes air and sea patrols, had never been higher.
“Any suggestion that there has been a change to the implementation of Operation Sovereign Borders is doing the work of the people smugglers for them," she said.
But shadow home affairs minister James Paterson said government figures showed of the 14 boats that authorities had located in the past two years, three had made it to Australian shores.
He cited recent Home Affairs Department annual reports, which showed a reduction in patrols by Border Force.
"The maritime patrol days are down 12 per cent in the last few years, and aerial surveillance is down 20 per cent," he said.
The department's 2022-23 annual report attributes the drop in patrols to "workforce impacts and vessel maintenance".
Jana Favero from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) said boat arrivals would always happen, and said governments were notoriously secretive about what happens at sea.
"There's an absolute lack of transparency around what's happening, which is why it's quite dangerous to look into numbers and figures. And it also does get politicised," she said.
A 2022 deal signed by the Morrison government allows for 450 refugees who have tried to enter Australia to be resettled instead in New Zealand.
But government data showed as of May 31, only 157 refugees had been settled under that deal, with the agreement set to expire in June 2025.
A spokesman for Ms O'Neil did not directly answer the ABC's question about a plan to extend the deal with New Zealand.
"If you attempt an illegal boat journey to Australia you will either be turned back or sent to Nauru," Ms O'Neil said.
Senator Paterson said the deal should be extended, and said a Coalition government would also approach other countries to try and resettle Australia's refugees.
Crossbench MPs including independent senator David Pocock, and North Sydney MP Kylea Tink are pushing the Albanese government to improve processing times, and prevent asylum seekers being left on Nauru for years.
Ms Tink said her private members' bill to cap offshore detention times at 90 days had private support from government and opposition backbenchers.
"It should be completely conceivable that the Australian government can deal with these people in 90 days," she said.
"In Canada they do it in 50 days."
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said Australia's offshore processing policy had cost $12 billion.
In its health report released today, it said of the 64 people on Nauru it is currently in contact with, 65 per cent had reported physical health conditions, while 22 per cent had severe mental health conditions.
Former detainee, Ethiopian asylum seeker Betelhem Tibebu, was sent to Nauru in 2013, where she lived in a tent for 15 months.
"The impact that I got from Nauru offshore detention was mentally and physically, sickness, that I cannot recover," she said.
"I'm traumatised. Mentally, I'm dead."
