They are Afghan, Pakistani, Rohingyan and Sri Lankan.

The group did not include refugees from Iran or Somalia or any of the Muslim majority countries banned from the US, which account for about half of all refugees on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and Nauru.

A spokesperson for Australia's Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton says the refugees have made the trip as part of a deal struck between former US president Barack Obama and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Advocate Ian Rintoul said the absence from the group of refugees from the banned countries showed the Australian government had no plan to secure the future of those people.

About 900 refugees remain on Nauru, including about 130 children.

Last week the Guardian reported that a 14-year-old refugee girl who had attempted suicide on Nauru by trying to set herself on fire was to be moved to Australia within days.

She is the eighth child moved from the island following a court order or the threat of legal action.

The Australian Border Force had rejected recommendations from doctors on the island to immediately move the girl to an Australian hospital for acute psychiatric treatment that isn't available on Nauru.

An urgent application brought by the National Justice Project to have the girl moved was set to be heard in the federal court last Friday morning in Sydney.

But just as proceedings commenced, the Australian government agreed to move her and her family to Australia.

About 220 refugees from Nauru have now been moved to the US with about 110 from Manus.

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• heguardian.com
• newstalkzb.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

Yet the stir around Lampedusa is itself worth looking into. The pope said such tragedies are "shameful," but I would describe Europe's emotional state as one of embarrassment. The embarrassment relates to our reluctance to confront the hypocrisy embedded in how we think about immigrants from the poor and broken parts of the world. On the one hand, we have high moral standards about our duty of care to refugees fleeing lives of squalor, fear and oppression, and these are embedded in various international treaties and national laws. On the other hand, if we applied those standards generally, we would have to accept that over a billion people have some legitimate claim to refugee status.

Who are those billion? Most women in the Middle East and perhaps Central America; homosexuals from most of the world; many of the world's indigenous peoples; most inhabitants of failed states like Somalia and the Central African Republic; everyone but the elite in totalitarian dictatorships like Eritrea, North Korea and Uzbekistan; the 12 million people without citizenship of any state; religious and ethnic minorities in intolerant countries like Pakistan and Burma; all the civilians in war zones like Syria and Baghdad; India's untouchables; China's Tibetans; the vast number of refugees interned for decades in long-term camps in poor countries, like the Somalis living in Kenya or the ethnic Nepalis expelled by Bhutan - and so on. Continue reading

Sources

• ABC Religion & Ethics
• Image: World News Post

On Thursday The Australian reported Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has been given the authority to put the Nauru detention centre on the table in talks with the Opposition aimed at ending the stand-off over offshore processing.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has welcomed reports that the Government will consider reopening the Nauru detention centre - he said he still needed a proposal in writing before he could enter into talks with the Government.

Abbott ruled out doing a deal which would include offshore processing in Malaysia and said he also wanted the Government to adopt his temporary protection visas policy.

He said any talks should be between himself and Julia Gillard, not between Mr Bowen and his Coalition counterpart Scott Morrison.

On Sunday, in his first public comments in support of processing asylum-seekers outside Australia, Cardinal Pell said that an offshore regime may be the only viable way to prevent refugees from being exploited by human-trafficking syndicates. "It's difficult to see any alternative to the government and opposition promptly agreeing on effective offshore deterrents. Australians do not want more tragedies like this."

Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, is known for his sympathy for refugees, condemning prime minister John Howard in 2001 over his "mean and excessively harsh" efforts to deter boat arrivals.

Source

• The Herald Sun
• The Australian
• 7 News
• The Daily Telegraph Australia
• Image: The New York Times

In 2009, I was privileged to chair the National Human Rights Consultation Committee. During that inquiry we commissioned some very detailed research on Australian attitudes. A random telephone poll of 1200 Australians disclosed that over 70 per cent of us think that the mentally ill, the aged, and persons with disabilities need greater protection from violation of their human rights.

By way of comparison, 32 per cent thought gays and lesbians needed greater protection, 50 per cent thought we had the balance right, and only 18 per cent thought gays and lesbians deserved less protection.

Australia is a long time signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 protocol. It is one of the few countries in the region having ratified the Convention. Indonesia and Malaysia are not parties to the Convention. Since the Vietnam War, there have been periodic waves of boat people heading for Australia seeking asylum. These boat people often pass through Malaysia and/or Indonesia.

Under the Convention, parties undertake three key obligations:

1. Not to impose for illegal entry or unauthorised presence in their country any penalty on refugees coming directly from a territory where they are threatened, provided only that the refugees present themselves without delay and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.
2. Not to expel refugees lawfully in their territory save on grounds of national security or public order.
3. Not to expel or return ('refoule') refugees to the frontiers of any territory where their lives or freedom would be threatened.