Advocate says refugees in Nauru and PNG have nowhere to go

Transcript

An advocate says the Australian government's haphazard policies towards asylum seekers have left genuine refugees on Nauru and Papua New Guinea, with nowhere to go.

The spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition Ian Rintoul says a 16-year-old attempted suicide last night after he was told he would be sent back to the Nauru detention centre.

He was being treated for kidney stones at the Brisbane Immigration Detention Centre.

Ian Rintoul told Bridget Tunnicliffe it says a lot about the conditions at the Australian offshore detention centre.

IAN RINTOUL: I mean the lack of medical facilities is just obvious by the endless number of people that are sent from Nauru to Brisbane for medical attention. It does seem that the water shortages, there are other issues on Nauru are certainly exacerbating you know the conditions, urinary infections, the kidney stones and things like that seem to be constantly coming off Nauru. There's everything about the physical conditions of Nauru which make it a completely improper place for, this kid's 16, it's an impossible place for unaccompanied minors, family, children, and you know anyone else for that matter.

BRIDGET TUNNICLIFFE: Also a statement has been put together by more than 50 refugees in the Fly Camp on Nauru, what sort of category are these men in, are these people that have been given temporary refugee status?

IR: Well they've actually been found to be refugees by Nauru, they've only been given temporary resident status by Nauru, that's to say they're not going to be allowed to permanently resettle there but they're definitively refugees as far as the Nauru determination process is concerned. I think the situation in Fly Camp is also going to be a revelation you know the idea that Fly Camp is adequate even for temporary settlement of people found to be refugees is absurd. These conditions wouldn't be accepted anywhere else and it highlights the fact that the Australian government has dumped refugees on Nauru but has nowhere in the end, neither the Nauru government nor the Australian government has anywhere when people are actually found, anywhere to settle them, when they are found actually to be refugees. But I think we are likely to find as what happened you know last time over the Howard government, with refugees from Nauru and from Manus Island, in the end because no other country in the world is going to take these people, they are regarded as Australia's responsibility, they are Australia's responsibility, in the end they will come back to Australia.

BT: And it has been reported that Cambodia may take up to 1,000 refugees from the detention centre on Nauru, almost emptying the island's detention centre. Is that the plan, to actually shut the detention centre on Nauru?

IR: No, no quite the contrary. I think it's very clear that Manus Island will be closed before Nauru will be closed. The government has sent nobody to Manus Island since Reza Barati was killed there in February and there are no single men being sent to Manus Island whereas the situation in Nauru, the government is slowing expanding accommodation there. But this is a completely sort of makeshift operation as far as the Australian government is concerned. As I said earlier there's no permanent resettlement on Nauru. Cambodia has said that it will be willing to take refugees from Nauru to Cambodia but it's you know throwing the pan into the fire really, Cambodia in some ways even is less able to provide permanent security for people than Nauru.