New Zealand should take refugees

NEW ZEALAND – Amnesty International is calling on New Zealand to take a lead in exerting international pressure on Australia over its detention centre on Nauru.

New Zealand has offered to take 150 of the asylum seekers, but Australia says it must deal directly with Nauru, and the offer is stalled.

The damning report on Australia’s detention centre in Nauru, outlining conditions which meet the legal definition of torture, show why New Zealand must agree to take in some of the island’s refugees, Amnesty International New Zealand says.

Amnesty’s senior researchdirector Anna Neistat said New Zealand had a crucial role as one of Australia’s key partners.

“International pressure should start from the region where New Zealand is undoubtedly the most serious player who could challenge Australia’s policy and, to a certain extent, show to Australia that things can be done differently.”

Amnesty New Zealand’s Grant Bayldon said Australia seemed unlikely to budge so other nations needed to act.

“What they need most is some hope – hope that there is some end to what is effectively detention there on Nauru, and hope that they aren’t forgotten.

“And that is what we are trying to do. We are working very hard on the Australian government, but also on other governments,” he said.

Amnesty said there was no moral or rational reason why New Zealand could not take the 150 refugees it originally promised to take three years ago.

However, Prime Minister John Key says the government will only take in refugees through Australia, rather than directly from Nauru – leading to a political stalemate between the two countries.

Key said the Government’s offer to resettle the refugees still stood – but only with Australia, rather than Nauru.

“Of course the thing the Australian government’s conscious of is that it wants to send a message that if you come via illegal means you can’t come into Australia, and if they come to New Zealand of course technically speaking over a period of time they would be able to come into Australia, so that’s a matter for them.”

Key met Nauru’s president at the Pacific Islands Forum in September, and said he had been given assurances the detention centres were “professional and well-run”.

The New Zealand government has a strained relationship with Nauru after it suspended a large part of its aid to the island a year ago, over concerns about the rule of law. - PNC