Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. Back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, Australia's top Court made a landmark
Speaker 1: ruling that it was against the law for the Australian
Speaker 1: government to definitely hold people in immigration detention. That ruling
Speaker 1: had massive implications for our country's border policies. It overturned
Speaker 1: twenty years of precedent and it led to the release
Speaker 1: of people into the community who have been held in
Speaker 1: immigration detention after having their visas canceled but weren't able
Speaker 1: to return to their home country. After that, the Albanesi
Speaker 1: government struck a controversial deal with NIRU worth two point
Speaker 1: five billion dollars. The tiny Islan nation would be paid
Speaker 1: to settle the detainees in exchange for money over a
Speaker 1: thirty year period. This week we learned that the deal
Speaker 1: has now begun and at least one person has now
Speaker 1: been deported to Nheru. Today journalist Denim Saddler on the
Speaker 1: former immigration detainees Australia is now deporting and were the
Speaker 1: Offlating them to Naru is a breach of our legal obligations.
Speaker 1: It's Sunday, November two. This episode was first published in September. Then,
Speaker 1: now let's start with this deal that was signed between
Speaker 1: Australia and NARU. What do we know about it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we first heard about this deal through a
Speaker 2: post on the Home Affairs website about a week ago.
Speaker 2: It was late on a Friday night, basically just saying
Speaker 2: that the Home Affairs Minister had been over there had
Speaker 2: signed a deal that will involve Australia paying Nharu a
Speaker 2: sum of money in exchange for a group of asylum
Speaker 2: seekers that are currently in Australia receiving thirty year visas
Speaker 2: to go live and stay live in the community in Naheru.
Speaker 2: So at the time it was announced, we didn't have
Speaker 2: a whole lot of information about it. The actual deal,
Speaker 2: the memorandum of understanding wasn't revealed to the public and
Speaker 2: we saw kind of ministers and the Prime Minister batting
Speaker 2: away questions about it.
Speaker 3: Why is so much secrecy around that deal?
Speaker 4: Hardly secret? You're just asking me about it on National
Speaker 4: do you know.
Speaker 3: I will contest that there was no release put out.
Speaker 3: It was quite little website. Well, well, okay, it was
Speaker 3: out there and it was wasn't easy to find.
Speaker 2: Albanezy was asked about and I kind of just talked about
Speaker 2: complexities and details without revealing much.
Speaker 4: There's complexities and detail here, including the number of people
Speaker 4: who go. There's arrange of provisions as part of.
Speaker 2: It, particularly in terms of how many people were going
Speaker 2: to be taken by NHRU.
Speaker 3: So do they get the four hundred million even if
Speaker 3: they take no asylum seecrets?
Speaker 4: There are arrangements in place, Patricia, And we have an
Speaker 4: arrangement between.
Speaker 2: How the payments would actually work and whether the payments
Speaker 2: were kind of based on how many people were there.
Speaker 3: Like does it just keep going or is it a timeframe?
Speaker 4: No, it doesn't, Patricia, And it's an arrangement between our
Speaker 4: government and then No Room government.
Speaker 3: But will you make the details of the payments clear
Speaker 3: for how long they get seven million a year?
Speaker 4: It's an arrangement between that's not government run government.
Speaker 2: And then we found a lot more information at a
Speaker 2: send inquiry last week that revealed the actual financial cost
Speaker 2: of this deal. So we found out there's an upfront
Speaker 2: payment that's going to be more than four hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars going to NORU once the first person is deported
Speaker 2: from Australia TONRU, and then also payments of up to
Speaker 2: seventy million dollars per year after that. So the whole
Speaker 2: deal over the thirty years is worth potentially two point
Speaker 2: five billion dollars. There's huge amounts of money going towards
Speaker 2: NARU in order to take some people from Australia on
Speaker 2: thirty of visas.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me more about the group that this
Speaker 1: arrangement is targeted at. This is a group of former
Speaker 1: immigration attorneys that were released in the community in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this stems back to the High Court decision
Speaker 2: from November twenty twenty three. So it is the end
Speaker 2: z YQ case.
Speaker 1: The High Court has tonight revealed all seven of its
Speaker 1: judges agreed in definite immigration detention is unlawful. They're surprised
Speaker 1: to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are people that were in immigration tension, but
Speaker 2: they were never actually going to go back to their
Speaker 2: home countries, so they were basically in indefinite detention and
Speaker 2: it was ruled that Australia can't do that, so they
Speaker 2: have to be released.
Speaker 5: Over thirty five pages ruling imprisonment was penal or punitive
Speaker 5: that could only be used by courts adjudging and punishing
Speaker 5: criminal guilt. Claiming detention pending removal was legal as long
Speaker 5: as removal through deportation was possible.
Speaker 2: So I think all up, there's about three hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty people that are caught up in that group, and
Speaker 2: basically over nearly the last two years, it's been a
Speaker 2: huge political problem more than anything for the government. The
Speaker 2: oppositions kind of targeted a lot and blamed the government
Speaker 2: for these people being out in the community, and there's
Speaker 2: been a lot of rhetoric around the danger of these
Speaker 2: people being out in the community, and I think the
Speaker 2: fear that if any further crimes happened that it'll be
Speaker 2: blamed on the government too.
Speaker 6: The Opposition is calling on the Prime Minister to sack
Speaker 6: his Immigration minister immediately following revelations he was worn about
Speaker 6: a controversial direction that has allowed foreign born criminals to
Speaker 6: stay in Australia.
Speaker 7: Anthony Albaneze needs to stop running a protection racket for
Speaker 7: Minister Giles and start protecting.
Speaker 8: The Australia because what he is doing to Australia is
Speaker 8: quite quite scary, and that's why the Prime Minister should
Speaker 8: show leadership and sack him. But he's not and I
Speaker 8: think that is but I think It is important to
Speaker 8: note not all of them have done crimes as well,
Speaker 8: but the people that have served a full prison sentence,
Speaker 8: if they were Australian citizens, they'd be in the community
Speaker 8: like normal and people are released every day for similar
Speaker 8: crimes normally, and it's not a big political issue. The
Speaker 8: only different thing here is these people are non citizens.
Speaker 1: You mentioned last week, Danan, that we learned a bit
Speaker 1: more about the arrangement when Home Affairs officials appeared before
Speaker 1: a Senate committee. Particularly, we learn a fair bit about
Speaker 1: the price tag. What are the questions did they face.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of kind of questions about the
Speaker 2: amounts of people that would be accepted, and part of
Speaker 2: the deal was NURU taking everyone in this cohort, and
Speaker 2: it was kind of a real that it's not it's
Speaker 2: still kind of neuru's discretion to issue these visas to people,
Speaker 2: so it's not necessarily going to take that whole cohort.
Speaker 9: The memorandum of understanding that was signed last week YEP
Speaker 9: doesn't specify the number of individuals. It is an agreement
Speaker 9: pursuant to the provision in the Act to consider applications
Speaker 9: from the Australian Government for people in this cohort and
Speaker 9: for NARU to grant visas pursuant to that based on
Speaker 9: their decision about whether they would.
Speaker 10: So there's no figure, so they could take zero, they could, right.
Speaker 2: I found out a bit about how the payments will work.
Speaker 2: That was obviously the big question, and I think people
Speaker 2: were very shocked to find out it can be up
Speaker 2: to two point five billion dollars. You kind of had
Speaker 2: David Pocock saying it was bonkers, like, I.
Speaker 1: Just want you to know, like the people out there,
Speaker 1: this sounds like totally bonkers, right, this is an extraordinary
Speaker 1: amount money. We all know it's expensive to house people, but.
Speaker 2: I think people genuinely really surprised that it was this
Speaker 2: much money going to this very tiny nation to take
Speaker 2: a group of people that is about kind of, yeah,
Speaker 2: three hundred people. And often it is the financial side
Speaker 2: that gets across people more than the human element. There's
Speaker 2: a very real human element here. But I think getting
Speaker 2: that figure has helped people be a bit more outraged
Speaker 2: by it than they were just when we found out
Speaker 2: there was a deal in place.
Speaker 1: And this deal is being paired with new legislation that
Speaker 1: expands Australia's deportation powers. Those laws passed the set at
Speaker 1: the end of last week. So what exactly do these
Speaker 1: new powers entail and how do they relate to this
Speaker 1: new arrangement with the route.
Speaker 2: There's are pretty extraordinary new powers, and that legislation that
Speaker 2: recently passed serves to constrict the rights to natural justice
Speaker 2: to this group of people in Australia, which is basic
Speaker 2: rights in the criminal justice system that have been taken
Speaker 2: away from these people.
Speaker 10: This horrific, monstrous bill.
Speaker 2: You've never seen us people of color, migrants of color
Speaker 2: as equals. There's been huge backlash from a range of
Speaker 2: human rights groups, refugee advocates and legal organizations about this
Speaker 2: plan to deport people and around the stripping of these
Speaker 2: really basic and fundamental rights.
Speaker 10: Australia's immigration regime is so brutal that even Trump points
Speaker 10: to it and said that's a good idea, we should
Speaker 10: do that too.
Speaker 2: There's concerns around these powers the government have given themselves to.
Speaker 2: You can be deported based on a decision that was wrong,
Speaker 2: and then the pact government has the power to kind
Speaker 2: of overall that and they've taken away all your avenue
Speaker 2: to appeal as well. The government have kind of justified
Speaker 2: it by saying that a lot of people are using
Speaker 2: procedural fairness to kind of slow the process. I think
Speaker 2: these exact words was kind of to frustrate their removal,
Speaker 2: to delay things, and I think the government has been
Speaker 2: frustrated by court proceedings around this. But that's also how
Speaker 2: it's meant to be functioning. So it's a lot of
Speaker 2: people being remove these basic rights to kind of speed
Speaker 2: up the process. I think is basically the aim and
Speaker 2: to get people out of Australia as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: So what's the problem that the government is trying to
Speaker 1: solve for you? I mean, what do they think the
Speaker 1: process needs to be split up and that essentially these
Speaker 1: groups should have the legal rights denied. I mean it's
Speaker 1: pretty extreme.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's just basically been that political problem
Speaker 2: that they've had since these people were ordered to be
Speaker 2: released by the High Court. It's kept popping up every
Speaker 2: time there has been another crime committed by someone that
Speaker 2: was released as part of that decision. It's become another
Speaker 2: political issue and it's just not going away. And I've tried.
Speaker 2: It's almost been a bit of kind of a whack
Speaker 2: a mole game with the courts. They've tried a few
Speaker 2: other things. They've tried electronic monitoring, they've tried getting people
Speaker 2: back in immigration detention, and it keeps either getting knocked
Speaker 2: back or stalled by the courts. So I think they're
Speaker 2: just looking a way to really completely wash the hands
Speaker 2: of these people and this issue and send them off
Speaker 2: to another country actually on visas. So it's really out
Speaker 2: of Australia's hands.
Speaker 1: Coming up what life on Naru will look like for
Speaker 1: this group. And you've been reporting on Australia's off sure
Speaker 1: immigration detension for some time there and you've examined what
Speaker 1: life is actually like on LaRue for this group who
Speaker 1: will be sent there. They will have visas, the right
Speaker 1: to work, freedom of movement. So what can you tell
Speaker 1: me about what life might be like once they arrive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Naru is a tiny nation. It's about twelve
Speaker 2: thousand people and there's a lot of poverty and the
Speaker 2: cost of living is extremely high. Basic bedgears, bottled water
Speaker 2: is very expensive. It's not an easy place to live.
Speaker 2: So there still are about one hundred asylum seekers in
Speaker 2: offshore processing on NRU at the moment, and they obviously
Speaker 2: are under different conditions and this cohort will be they
Speaker 2: don't have the right to work and other rights like that.
Speaker 2: But I'm in contact with some of those people and yeah,
Speaker 2: they just describe it extremely hard to get buy over there,
Speaker 2: and a lot of them are going without three meals
Speaker 2: a day. And they also say that people are very
Speaker 2: aware of what's happening with this deal. They're aware of
Speaker 2: who these people are and who the government have kind
Speaker 2: of described them as being too. Obviously, a big part
Speaker 2: of this is these people being described as dangerous and appalling,
Speaker 2: and there are people in the script that haven't even
Speaker 2: committed a crime, but there's been a lot of rhetoric
Speaker 2: about just how dangerous they are. And now you're kind
Speaker 2: of sending them off to a very small country to
Speaker 2: just live amongst the community. You can see a lot
Speaker 2: of issues with that, and issues with finding work as
Speaker 2: well to survive when you've kind of been described like
Speaker 2: that by the big government nearby. Can see a lot
Speaker 2: of issues around that.
Speaker 1: So what kind of support will they have once they
Speaker 1: arrive and in your estimation, does have the ability to
Speaker 1: support them.
Speaker 2: We don't know a lot of detail about the support
Speaker 2: on office. Similar to a lot of things about this deal.
Speaker 2: We do know that some chunk of the payments Australia
Speaker 2: sending is going directly to the new government to support
Speaker 2: these people, but beyond that we don't know. There have
Speaker 2: been huge problems in the past with a lot of
Speaker 2: the huge amounts of money that are in the immigration
Speaker 2: detention system over there being misused and corruption issues. So
Speaker 2: there's always going to be ongoing concerns around that. And
Speaker 2: it's just a very low socioeconomic country that will struggle
Speaker 2: with a new group. I think there's about one in
Speaker 2: four people in Nuru live below the basic needs poverty line. Already,
Speaker 2: healthcare is a massive concern. There's have been ongoing issues
Speaker 2: in Australia with bringing people onto mainland Australia who need
Speaker 2: medical treatment, bringing asylum seekers, there's not really established healthcare
Speaker 2: offerings there, and I think there's already existing problems and
Speaker 2: you're bringing potentially hundreds of new people there. I think
Speaker 2: there's huge concerns about being able to support them properly
Speaker 2: and what sort of.
Speaker 1: Questions does this phrase about Australia's obligations to these people.
Speaker 1: Australia won't resettle them, but they also can't return them
Speaker 1: to their country. Of origin for fear of being harmed.
Speaker 1: So do we still have a responsibility for their welfare
Speaker 1: even if Australia offloads them to a third country.
Speaker 2: I think it's a great question and I think it's
Speaker 2: one that will be tested because I think Australia will
Speaker 2: very much argue that they don't after this. I think
Speaker 2: they'll say they've satisfied their obligations by finding a new
Speaker 2: country for them to live in. They've on a visa
Speaker 2: for thirty years, they've got rights to work. But I
Speaker 2: think there's a very strong argument that Australia does have
Speaker 2: a responsibility. We forcibly sent them over to this very
Speaker 2: small nation. There is some obligation there, and it's as
Speaker 2: part of a deal where we're sending a lot of money.
Speaker 2: So I think there are going to be a lot
Speaker 2: of arguments that Australia does still have a very strong
Speaker 2: responsibility for their welfare. We're kind of following the rules
Speaker 2: around non refilments, so we can't send them back to
Speaker 2: a country they're going to face persecution, and that's why
Speaker 2: they found a fix in terms of Nuru and paying
Speaker 2: a country to take them. But I think that just
Speaker 2: raises massive questions about the responsibility of Australia and I
Speaker 2: think they're quite likely to be tested and in some
Speaker 2: way or another, I think it raises really important questions
Speaker 2: about the prison system as well. I think people and
Speaker 2: help serve their prison sentence EAT eight people are coming
Speaker 2: out of prison having done worse crimes and a lot
Speaker 2: of people in this group and that scene is okay.
Speaker 2: But for some reason it's different, purely because these people
Speaker 2: come from different countries. So I think Australia has an
Speaker 2: obligation to help with the rehabilitation and reintegration sort of
Speaker 2: process with these people, rather than just offshoring them to
Speaker 2: a different country and washing our hands.
Speaker 1: Danian, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow on the show. I'm bringing you a fascinating interview
Speaker 1: with the woman responsible for exposing the child abuse rampant
Speaker 1: in the tild care sector last year. After hearing complaints
Speaker 1: from parents about what was going on in daycare centers,
Speaker 1: New South Wales, Green's MLC Abigail Boyd started investigating and
Speaker 1: what she found was horrific. In thousands of documents Abigail
Speaker 1: read about the ways house system fails children.
Speaker 7: I can't explain or described just how awful it was,
Speaker 7: spending hours reading and not just one We're not talking
Speaker 7: just one incident. This is incident after incident after incident,
Speaker 7: across so many centers.
Speaker 1: She worked with Four Corners to expose these stories, and
Speaker 1: she spent the year sharing a Parliamentary inquiry into the
Speaker 1: multi billion dollar sector, grilling CEOs from the industry, hearing
Speaker 1: from workers, and I'm picking what's gone wrong at the regulator.
Speaker 1: She tells us what needs to change to protect Australian children.
Speaker 1: Don't miss that conversation tomorrow on seven am. See you then,