Last of children in Nauru go to US

NO more asylum seeker children will be held on Nauru with the final four preparing to fly to the US with their families for resettlement.

They are the last of the more than 200 children who had been held at the island’s processing centre when the Coalition won government in 2013, marking a milestone for the Morrison Government.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday it was vindication of the Operation Sovereign Borders policy.

When he took over as leader at the end of August, there were 109 children in immigration detention on Nauru.

“Since then, and as was made clear at the time, we have been working quietly and methodically through this process without compromising the integrity of Operation Sovereign Borders,” Mr Morrison said in a joint statement with Immigration Minister David Coleman.

“We have got all the children Labor put in detention centres out, and we have shut down all the detention centres Labor opened, including on Christmas Island.”

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten welcomed the news while querying whether the Government should really be taking all the credit.

“I do believe if the crossbench and the Opposition and some of the progressive Liberals hadn’t pursued this, I do wonder if the children would have been off,” he said.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said it was long overdue. “They’ve been languishing there for years and years,” he said. “These are kids that will have years of counselling ahead of them.”

Asylum seeker advocates, including the Human Rights Law Centre, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the National Justice Project and Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, also applauded the move but

WE HAVE BEEN WORKING THROUGH THIS PROCESS WITHOUT COMPROMISING OPERATION SOVEREIGN BORDERS SCOTT MORRISON

warned there was a continuing medical crisis for those adults remaining in immigration detention on Nauru and Manus Island.

With the resumption of Parliament in a fortnight, Labor and crossbenchers are expected to push a Bill that gives doctors more say in whether refugees in offshore detention should be moved to the mainland for medical treatment. More than 1000 asylum seekers remain in the two centres and continue to face an uncertain fate.

Mr Shorten said Labor would continue to pursue the laws but did not know if the crossbench still backed them.