Australia frowns on New Zealand incentive for asylum-seekers

The number of asylum seekers trying to reach Australia is small in comparison with those arriving in Europe, but border security is a hot-button political issue in Australia, which is scheduled to hold a national election later in the year.

“To say raising a child on Nauru is abuse insults every Nauruan parent & the intelligence of every Australian”, the Nauru government’s Twitter account said.

A hospital in Australia is refusing to return a baby that suffered from third degree burns to its Christian parents due to the living conditions of the family’s asylum camp.

Now doctors at a Brisbane hospital are refusing to discharge a 12-month-old baby, Asha, until the government guarantees she will not be removed to Nauru.

Immigration officials have been known to transfer asylum seekers between detention facilities with little notice, partly to prevent them becoming anxious and potentially resisting the move.

Gillespie said Nauru was not suitable for Asha or anyone else in detention on the small Pacific island nation.

She said LMAW would attend the vigil every day “to stand in solidarity with Asha and her family and the medical staff caring for her”.

“The government’s policy of indefinite detention, especially of children, is morally unacceptable”, she said.

Earlier this month, the government won a high court challenge to the constitutionality of Australia’s offshore detention system – a policy that is supported by both the Coalition and Labor.

Natasha Blucher, Advocacy Coordinator with Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network and a community advocate for the family said: “This mother is terrified and the family’s situation is extremely tenuous. Historically the Australians have said “no”, Mr Key said.

According to a report published by Essential on Tuesday, 40 per cent of the 1,015 people polled said they thought babies born in Australia should remain in the country, while 39 per cent said they should be sent to Nauru.

Australia says the policies are necessary to stop asylum seekers drowning aboard the unseaworthy vessels used by people smugglers to ship them from Indonesia to Australia.

Mr Copeman said the case of Baby Asha was a personal example “of the harmful nature” of detention centres.

“We informed him that we will continue to do whatever it takes for all children to be released from immigration detention”.

“But we are looking at all these cases very carefully, or (Immigration minister) Peter Dutton is”.

“If they want us to take people, then subject to them meeting the criteria, New Zealand would be obliged to do that because we’ve given a commitment to do so”, Key told reporters.