Room for Manus men on Nauru

NAURU – Nauru has room for the 850 men from Manus Island’s detention centre, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says, but he is stressing the Australian Government remains in talks about the options available in Papua New Guinea.

A former Nauru president and current MP, Sprent Dabwido, has said that while there is room in the centre on Nauru, without a country to resettle in permanently, some refugees will always feel distressed about living on Nauru.

“My priority would be the same agreement as PNG. Would they resettle? Would they come here expecting to be resettled? We might have problems with that,” he said.

“The other priority would be the safety of Nauruans. The people that have been screened and processed as refugees, I don’t mind coming to Nauru and enjoying the same freedom the refugees here enjoy.

“Unless they have a final destination, of course, there will be all this tension. And to bring an extra 850 here with no plans, no future, that’s where the tension comes from.”

Touching on the self-immolation of a refugee outside one of the camps on Nauru on Wednesday, Dabwido said the conditions on Nauru were not the problem.

“The real issue here, why these people are doing these self-harm things, is not because of the conditions on Nauru, it is because they cannot get to Australia. And we must make that very clear,” he said.

The MP said there was no chance of a similar legal challenge that will lead to the closure of Manus Island’s facility in Nauru’s courts, saying it was “not against the constitution where we’re detaining people”.

- ABC