Re-opening Nauru Detention Centre

Tony Abbott has promised as his first order of business if elected at the Federal Election will be to re–open the Nauru Detention Centre in order to ‘stop the boats’. Such promises exist in a historical vacuum, disconnected from the past horrors and suffering caused during Australia’s ‘Pacific Solution’ when Nauru was used as a place of detention. It is as though a selective amnesia has taken hold of the body politic.

The list of horror stories from Nauru is long:

• At one stage there were 289 asylum seekers detained for 3 years including 93 children
• Dozens of babies were born in the detention camp at Nauru
• 40 people were airlifted from Nauru to Australia for urgent medical care as they became suicidal as a result of being held in detention on Nauru
• 45 men went on hunger strike for 22 days out of sheer despair
• It cost Australia, $2 million dollars a month to keep Nauru open
• A young man in his early 20s died for unknown reasons while being detained at Nauru
• The detention centre was left open to just house 2 Iraqi asylum seekers, until one became so suicidal that Australia finally took him and the other man was finally freed after Sweden took him. Each of these men spent 5 years on Nauru

We must never repeat such a history. Nauru is no better placed now than it was then to process asylum seekers. Furthermore, the offshore processing of asylum seekers is a blatant breach of the Refugee Convention, the fundamental human right to seek asylum and the de facto excision of Australia.