Abbott says Nauru could take up to 5000 refugees

Tuesday, September 10th, 2013

Tony Abbott says Nauru is a “pleasant island” that can accommodate up to 5000 asylum seekers.

During the election campaign he told Neil Mitchell the ‘tent city’ asylum seeker policy would cost about $50 million to set up.

Abbott said reports of $75 a week in handouts for asylum seekers was incorrect – “we’re looking at more like $5 a day (while in a processing centre)”.

However, Mr Abbott wouldn’t say what support would be provided outside the processing centre.

Father Frank Brennan, who is professor of law at the Australian Catholic University’s public policy institute and a confidante of the Prime Minister, believes a deterrent is needed in the border protection policy mix but thinks that has to involve Malaysia and Indonesia and he’s dismayed by the PNG plan.

According to Brennan “If the High Court were not to look at this we would be told that in jurisdictional terms the Australian executive government could do what it damn well likes and could never been supervised by the courts and could never again be supervised by the parliament. I think there’s no way the High Court of Australia will wear that.”

Brennan said he is “very concerned that what we’ve now got to is a situation when we go into electoral mode where we as Australians are led by politicians who trash the processes that are necessary for detailed bilateral negotiations with neighbours such as Indonesia and Malaysia.”

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