Closure of NZ ‘back door’ key to Nauru deal

A bill to ban resettled refugees from Australia could win Senate support if it applied only to those sent to New Zealand.

Immigration Minister David Coleman.

A controversial bill to ban resettled refugees from coming to Australia could gain Senate support if it applied only to those sent to New Zealand, paving the way for getting detainees off Nauru.

Scott Morrison is reviving the so-called “lifetime ban” legislation amid increasing pressure from the Coalition backbench and Labor — and against the backdrop of Saturday’s Wentworth by-election — to move refugees out of offshore ­detention.

Immigration Minister David Coleman began speaking with Senate crossbenchers on Tuesday to gauge their support for the legislation, which stalled in the Senate in late 2016.

The Prime Minister yesterday sought to play down a shift in the government’s tough border stance, declaring “there is no support for that bill at present”.

But the government stands a chance at getting the bill through the parliament, with at least seven crossbenchers saying they will consider backing it in some form.

Three Senate crossbenchers — Brian Burston, Fraser Anning and Pauline Hanson — said they would support the bill if it was put to a vote in its current form.

Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm said he was also prepared to look at the bill, suggesting the government was “right to be cautious” about removing the deterrent to boat people settling in Australia under Operation Sovereign Borders.

Centre Alliance, which has two crucial Senate crossbench votes, and Victorian independent senator Derryn Hinch, were opposed to the existing bill but open to negotiating with the government if it limited the ban to those refugees resettled in New Zealand.

“(Mr Morrison) might decide to say this will only relate to getting people off Nauru and into New Zealand. Perhaps we can sit down and talk about some options or look at another way of being able to allay our concerns and issues,” Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff said.

Senators Cory Bernardi and Tim Storer and One Nation’s Peter Georgiou said they were yet to decide their positions.

The government needs the votes of eight of 10 Senate crossbenchers to pass the bill without Labor and Greens support.

Opposition immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann, who has branded the bill a “ridiculous overreach” and irrelevant to securing third-country resettlement arrangements, said the government was yet to approach Labor for its support.

Senior government sources told The Australian this week that the Prime Minister — the architect of Operation Sovereign Borders — would be “more likely” to accept NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s offer to take 150 refugees from Nauru if Coalition legislation to close the “back door” to Australia was passed by the Senate.

The Australian has been told the government will bring on the bill if its passage is assured.

Senators Burston and Anning said closing any loophole that allowed resettled refugees from offshore detention centres to come to Australia was a good thing.

There are 693 refugees and asylum-seekers on Nauru and 644 on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. A spokesman for Ms Ardern said NZ would await to see the outcome of the Senate vote.