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On Monday the Nauruan government confirmed it was now a party to the UN Refugee Convention. The paperwork necessary to join the convention in June was signed in June. It then had to wait for the UN to process its application.
Nauru’s decision to sign the convention bolsters Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s calls to recommence offshore processing of asylum seekers in the island’s mothballed detention centre.
The Australian Labour Government has ruled out returning to Nauru, choosing instead to press ahead with a bid to resurrect its controversial Malaysian people swap deal.
“She (Julia Gillard) now claims Nauru is unsuitable for offshore processing because it will not help the Government break ‘the people smuggling business model’. If she really believes Nauru could not work, how could she ever have thought East Timor would work?” says law professor and Jesuit priest Frank Brennan.
“If her trusted advisers are now telling her Nauru will not work, there is no way they could ever have told her East Timor would work. East Timor would have become a honeypot for asylum seekers in Indonesia catching the ferry to West Timor and making their way by land to the East Timor processing centre, asking for fast track processing to Australia. It was always an absurd idea.”
Source
- Pina
- Eureka Street
- Image: Herald Sun
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News category: Asia Pacific.
