Peter Dutton says asylum seeker children brought to Australia will not stay permanently

Peter Dutton says asylum seeker children brought to Australia will not stay permanently and won’t confirm if parents will come too.

Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton.

Peter Dutton says asylum seeker children brought to Australia will not stay here permanently, but he could not confirm if parents would be allowed to leave Nauru with them.

The Australian revealed today that Scott Morrison plans to have all 40 children in the island detention centre relocated to Australia by the end of the year.

The news has been welcomed by staunch critics of the Coalition’s border policy like former human rights tsar Gillian Triggs.

“We’re in the process of doing it in Nauru but we’re doing it in a way that’s not going to restart boats ... we’ve been very clear that people are not settling permanently here,” Mr Dutton told 2GB.

“We’ve been very clear that when they receive medical assistance, then the expectation is that they will return to their country of origin.”

When asked if parents on Nauru who were rejected by the United States on security grounds would be allowed in Australia, Mr Dutton said he would look at each case individually.

“I’ve had cases before where I’ve made decisions that the father will stay in custody and the child and the mother will go out into the community,” he told 2GB.

“We work through each of those cases.”

Ms Triggs, the former Human Rights Commission president, said it was “remarkably good news” the government will move children off Nauru, but she wants adults transferred too.

“I think we can say it’s remarkably good news that these children will now have access to proper medical care in Australia,” she told ABC radio.

“The same arguments apply to their parents. to their grandparents. But especially to these young men who are Manus for the most part … they are in utter despair with very similar medical indications.”

Ms Triggs led a controversial review into Australia’s border protection policies when she was in charge of the HRC which was accused of political bias at the time.

Gillian Triggs, the former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Mr Morrison says the move is “in accordance with … our existing policies”.

The Prime Minister said this morning children have been moving from Nauru for “some time” but he would not shift on his overall border protection policies.

“Children have been transferred off Nauru. That’s been happening for some time. I haven’t been showboating about it, I haven’t been drawing attention to it,” he told 2GB.

“It’s been done in accordance with our policies, our existing policies. And I obviously don’t go into operational arrangements to about where they go.”

The Australian reported today that 244 minors have been relocated from offshore processing centres to Australia over the past several years.

Official figures from the Department of Home Affairs also revealed that an average of almost eight children a year have been born on the island to people now found to be refugees and people awaiting a decision on their status.

Mr Morrison said he would not bow to pressure to soften his border policies now that he faced minority government and a House of Representatives crossbench, including Kerryn Phelps, who has advocated that children must be removed from Nauru due to a “health crisis.”

“Our government is the government that got people out of detention, not sending children to Nauru” he told 2GB.

“You don’t get children off Nauru by putting more children on Nauru by weak border protection.”