Gillian Triggs calls on Labor to support lifetime ban on refugees

Former president of the HRC Gillian Triggs has backflipped on her opposition to the government’s policy on asylum seekers.

Gillian Triggs has called on Labor to support the Manus and Nauru lifetime ban. Picture: ABC.

Former president of the Human Rights Council Gillian Triggs has backflipped on her opposition to the federal government’s policy on asylum seekers, coming out in support of the proposed lifetime ban on refugees from Manus Island and Nauru entering Australia if they were resettled in New Zealand.

In an interview on ABC Radio National’s Drive on Thursday night, the professor of International Law called on Labor to support Scott Morrison’s deal to send 150 refugees a year to New Zealand, in an effort to “be practical”.

“If we now have a momentum to bring those children … and their families ... back to Australia then I feel we’ve got some grounds to be cautiously optimistic,” she said.

“It’s not a choice I would ever really want to make on a moral level, but at the same time you have to be practical.

“If it gets them off and into civilised conditions in New Zealand ... then I think we have to go for it.

“Get these families and their children into stable lives where they can start to see a future.”

The proposed deal, which NZ had offered to Prime Minister Morrison, would require support from Labor to be passed. However the stipulation that refugees from the Manus Island and Nauruwould be banned from any future resettlement in Australia has been a sticking point.

While publicly opposing the lifetime ban, it is understood some Labor MPs are keen to negotiate on their position in an effort to free 150 refugees from the detention centres.

“If those conditions are to be imposed, I think I’d come down on the side of saying yes, let’s go for it, let’s get those children and their families off,” said Dr Triggs.

Despite her message to the federal opposition, Dr Triggs also described the lifetime ban on the refugees ever stepping foot into Australia - even when applying for an official visa - as “improper, illegal, manipulative and wrong”.

Her calls come after three Liberal MPs warned that the situation on Nauru and Manus Island had reached a “tipping point”, and urged their Prime Minister for an immediate evacuation of children and their families from Manus Island and Nauru out of humanitarian concern.

However Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said this week that “a single act of compassion” could cancel out the dissuasion tactic the government has been sending to people smugglers.