Nauru’s President David Adeang and Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke signed the new deal for the Pacific Island nation to accept hundreds of non-citizens last week.
Photo: Facebook / Nauru Government
The first of potentially hundreds of individuals deemed non-citizens by Australia have been removed to Nauru as part of the latest multimillion dollar resettlement arrangement between the nations.
Refugee advocates say they know of at least three men who have been removed, with eight more detained for deportation under the memorandum of understanding arrangement signed in August.
The details of the deal, which Australian media have reported will cost $2.5 billion in payments to Nauru over 30 years, remain secret.
About 350 people, known as the NZYQ cohort, are being targeted under the deal.
Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson Ian Rintoul said the removal process was initiated once Nauru issued an individual with a visa. That, in turn, led to Australian authorities cancelling their visa then detaining them, often in the early hours of the morning, he said.
“As soon as Nauru issues the visa for the person, the visa is cancelled, and they’re able to be re-detained,” Rintoul said.
“So people are being picked up at… three o’clock, four o’clock in the morning for the purposes of being re-detained. Some of them only with a week’s notice of removal to Nauru.”
Ian Rintoul
Photo: Supplied
Rintoul labelled the process “racist” and said it was only possible because people in the NZYQ cohort were not Australian and on “bridging visas”.
“Everyone else in Australia, if they’re sentenced to time in prison… they do the time, they’re released and able to get on with their lives. In this case… they’re being punished because they’re not Australian,” he said.
The cohort have been nicknamed after a 2023 High Court ruling that found keeping them in indefinite detention was unlawful. The individuals had been detained because they had failed character tests, but also could not be deported to their countries of origin.
“Most of them are people who have been in Australia for quite a long time, and most of them have got families, and in many instances, either Australian citizen wives or Australian citizen children,” Rintoul said.
“Most people were working… and have just been snatched out of the family home or the place they were living with their families.”
The 25-square-kilometers of land encompassing Nauru has been devastated by phosphate mining which once made the Micronesian Nauruans the second wealthiest people per capita on earth.
Photo: AFP /Torsten Blackwood
Rintoul said the Australia government had been determined to remove the individuals, pointing to several rounds of legislation it had passed since the beginning of last year to do it.
The eight men currently detained for removal to Nauru had initiated legal proceedings to stop the deportation, he added.
‘No right to remain in Australia’
But a spokesperson from the Home Affairs department said in a statement the Memorandum of Understanding arrangement stemmed from an earlier interim agreement where three non-citizens who had “no right to remain in Australia but who were not able to be returned to their home country” were granted long-term stay visas by the Nauru government.
RNZ Pacific requested a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding under the Australia Freedom of Information Act and received an 11-page document that was completely redacted.
Australia’s Home Affairs Department provided RNZ Pacific a 11-page document that was completely redacted.
Photo: RNZ Pacific
The Department of Home Affairs said releasing the Memorandum of Understanding would adversely impact its ability to “maintain good working relations” with Nauru. Under the Freedom of Information Act, this is grounds to exempt document disclosure.
Refugee Council of Australia advocacy coordinator Graham Thom said the lack of transparency was not good enough and compounded legal and human rights concerns.
“How much is going to actually support these individuals? How much is going to support ongoing needs of the people on Nauru? Where is this money going?
“It’s an extraordinary amount of money, and I think absolutely the Australian taxpayers should have a right to see what this agreement is all about.”
The Home Affairs department spokesperson said under the arrangement, individuals would be provided with appropriate housing, healthcare and work rights to support their settlement and integration in Nauru.
The spokesperson added the Nauru government was “being provided with resources” to support the resettlement arrangement, including for community safety.
Thom said only concrete details would reveal whether the needs of those being sent to Nauru, as well as the local community, were being met.
“We know that there have been outbreaks of dengue fever on Nauru, and we’ve had people having to be transferred back for medical treatment here in Australia.
“And the other thing is cost of living on Nauru… 90 percent of the food on Nauru is imported. So how appropriate is it to be sending extra people, a number of which have health issues to this particular island? The details are so important.”
Nauru ‘struggling for money’ – expert
Pacific policy expert Sione Tekiteki said for the Nauru government, the arrangement was a reliable and tested source of income for its economy.
“This is just a continuation of 20 to 25 years of such arrangements. This is something that transpired back in the early 2000s where Australia was looking to offload what they would deem illegal migrants to Nauru.
Sione Tekiteki
Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Lydia Lewis
“And if history be told, back then Nauru was really struggling for money, and it still does.”
However, Tekiteki pointed out the arrangement came with its own challenges for Nauru’s leaders and its population of about 12,000.
The societal impacts of potentially hundreds of people being resettled in Nauru, which at 21 square kilometres, is one of the smallest countries in the world, must be considered, he said.
“So for Nauruans, it’s learning to adapt and learning to live with new migrants, and for migrants themselves, it’s learning to live in a country that by-and-large, they don’t want to live [in].
“In the past, there’s been instances of refugees protesting because they’re in Nauru. So there’s tensions both ways.”
The Nauru government did not respond to requests for comment.