Lost opportunity for NZ on Nauru

It was only a fortnight ago that World Vision New Zealand appealed to the better side of our nature with a campaign to rescue 119 children from detention on Nauru. It prompted images of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern leading the kids out of dark captivity and into the light.

The idea was quickly scotched by a dose of political realism but that it was seriously floated at all spoke volumes about a belief in Ardern and her Government, and a hope that some good might one day be salvaged from the hellhole of the Pacific.

That hope has faded even further. If this week’s events on Nauru tell us anything, it is that an ongoing human rights crisis is no closer to an end and that politics will always come first.

Could we have imagined that media scrutiny, controlled as it has been, might shame Nauru and its Australian enablers? Instead we have seen further predictable abuses of media freedom, such as when respected TVNZ journalist Barbara Dreaver was detained by police on Nauru after interviewing a refugee without permission from the authorities.

We have also seen political contradictions. It is disappointing that NZ First leader and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has again embarrassed the Government over one of its key policies. While Peters’ coalition negotiations in 2017 were top secret, his policy disagreements have a strange knack of playing out in public at the worst possible moment.

Three months ago, he embarrassed Justice Minister Andrew Little by putting the kibosh on Little’s dream of repealing the three strikes law. This week he pulled the pin on the Government’s intention to increase our meagre refugee intake from 750 per year to 1500. And he did it on Nauru while Ardern was still back in New Zealand.

Pragmatists might say this is simply the reality of coalition politics. Others might be reminded of the fable of the scorpion and the frog. In other words, Ardern should have known Peters’ nature all along, and doubling the refugee intake was always a poor fit for a party with nationalist and populist foundations.

That is just one way in which this week’s Pacific Islands Forum seems to have been a squandered opportunity for New Zealand to display its principles at a global level. Another is the petty obsession of some in the local media with the cost of flying the prime minister to Nauru. A dreary preoccupation with the dollars and cents of government has overshadowed the ongoing human suffering on Nauru.

The grim reality of Nauru is more important than point-scoring by NZ First and questions about travel expenses. The Refugee Council of Australia released a report this month that puts everything else in stark perspective. It is worth quoting at length and reflecting on.

‘‘In 2013, Amnesty International reported that Australia’s policy of offshore processing was breaking people,’’ the report says. ‘‘Six years on, people are broken. Children as young as 7 and 12 are experiencing repeated incidents of suicide attempts, dousing themselves in petrol, and becoming catatonic. At least two people have killed themselves, and three others have died. Many more are trying to kill or harm themselves. People are losing their hope and their lives on this island. This is Australia’s man-made refugee crisis in the country it still treats as a colony, Nauru.’’

‘‘A dreary preoccupation with the dollars and cents of government has overshadowed the ongoing human suffering on Nauru.’’