Security concerns set to keep children in Nauru limbo

Family member of 13 children were rejected for resettlement in the US on security grounds.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would not horse trade on border protection. Picture: AAP

A quarter of the child detainees on Nauru are likely to remain in limbo after members of their families were rejected for resettlement in the US on security grounds.

As the government shot down a proposed Labor compromise to send refugees to New Zealand, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton yesterday revealed that the US had rejected family members of 13 of the 52 children subject to offshore processing on Nauru.

In a letter to Immigration Minister David Coleman, opposition immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann demanded “guaranteed acceptance” of NZ’s offer to resettle all of the children and their family members from Nauru to NZ, in return for Labor support for the government’s so-called “lifetime ban” bill.

But Mr Dutton said Labor failed to take into account the national security implications of its plan.

“Is New Zealand going to take those people where the United States has advised that that person, that individual, in the family unit, is a risk to national security?” Mr Dutton said in parliament.

“Is the Labor Party suggesting that Australia should take those males and bring them to our country? Is that what they’re suggesting?

“Are they suggesting that we should separate the children from the parents, leave the parents in Nauru but bring the children here?”

Scott Morrison also shot down the Labor proposal, declaring he would not “horse trade on border protection”.

“You don’t do it. Because all you do is run the risk of creating a perverse incentive,” the Prime Minister said. “Labor have always been for weaker border protection policies. And you don’t get children off Nauru by putting more children on Nauru through weaker border protection policies.”

Labor has been under pressure to support a government bill, currently stalled in the Senate, to prevent resettled refugees from ever coming to Australia.

Mr Morrison has indicated that if the bill passes, he will be more likely to accept Jacinda Ardern’s offer to resettle 150 refugees from Nauru. Mr Neumann said Labor believed the bill was “ridiculous overreach”, but would support it with key amendments. Labor wants guaranteed acceptance of the NZ deal, the restriction of the “lifetime ban” to those resettled in NZ, and allowing resettled refugees to visit Australia on tourist visas.

The government does not have enough support from the Senate crossbench to pass the bill in its current form, with the two Centre Alliance senators and Victorian independent Derryn Hinch opposed to the legislation.

Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek said Labor was prepared to negotiate on the bill because it wanted to help “these vulnerable people” find a new home.

“Labor is prepared to compromise with the government because we get it, we understand that it is beyond time that these people, who have been reported by their doctors and other support workers to be in the most desperate circumstances,” she said.

Liberal moderate Jason Falinski, who has been urging the government to address the impasse, said Labor was playing politics.

“My first reaction was ‘this is a smart-arse Labor move to get themselves off the hook’,” Mr Falinski said. He said if Labor genuinely wanted to get people off Nauru, it would pass the government’s version of the bill.

Save the Children said it welcomed the proposed Labor compromise “with a heavy heart”, saying it still had serious concerns about the government’s legislation to restrict the rights of refugees to resettle in Australia.