Labor to push for Senate inquiry into Nauru leaks

Canberra: The Federal Opposition believes it has enough support to establish a Senate inquiry into abuse at the Nauru offshore detention centre, following the leaking of thousands of incident reports from the centre last week. The documents were leaked to The Guardian, a number of which detail allegations of abuse at the centre — some involving children. During the week, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton stressed a significant proportion of the claims would relate to minor matters such as complaints over the centres food and children not going to school. However, he said serious claims of abuse would be properly investigated by Nauruan authorities. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said that response was not good enough. “What we see in Nauru requires the attention of the Parliament,” Mr Shorten said.

“I support regional processing, but I don’t believe you should have regional processing at the price of indefinite detention. Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate Sam Dastyari said the inquiry would find “what it will find” when questioned as to whether the decisions by the former Labor government could be under scrutiny. But he insisted the focus would be on the Coalition.

“At the heart of this is this secrecy fetish that’s been run by this Government, and this idea that says that we can cover this up and hide it,” Senator Dastyari told ABC’s Insiders.

“The bit that I just can’t comprehend is why the simple idea that was presented by Bill Shorten this year, having an independent child advocate, wasn’t leapt upon by the Government. ABC