Australia strikes $400m agreement with Nauru to resettle ex-detainees, sparking human rights backlash

Hundreds of former immigration detainees will be deported to Nauru under a controversial deal that has secured bipartisan support.

The pact will cost Australian taxpayers more than $400 million up front and then $70 million ongoing each year.

It will allow Australia to transfer about 280 former detainees, including convicted criminals to the tiny Pacific island, which has a population of about 12,000.

Human rights groups and the Greens have condemned the agreement, which was signed by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.

The deal impacts several hundred people known as the NZYQ cohort, who were released from custody following a landmark High Court ruling on indefinite detention.

Shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser said it was a “legitimate arrangement”.

“This cohort of people have had ample opportunities to put their case,” he told the ABC on Sunday.

“They have exhausted all appeal avenues and the question now is whether they can be removed to another country.”

Greens’ immigration spokesman David Shoebridge condemned the agreement.

“This is another secret deal,” he said.

“This time a $400 million secret deal, that Labor signed with Nauru to literally turn Nauru into a 21st-century prison colony.”

The federal government must pass legislation to allow for the removals.

Cabinet minister Murray Watt wants to make progress as soon as possible.

“It’s not the intention to send the entire cohort in one group,” he told Sky News.

“The plan is to scale the number up and allow Nauru to put in place the systems that allow for the number to increase over time.”

Senator Watt rejected suggestions that Australia was dumping unwanted people, including criminals on Nauru.

“Nauru is an independent sovereign nation,” he said.

“It can make its own decisions about what it wants to do, and the fact that they have reached that agreement with Australia does solve this issue.”

The home affairs minister visited Nauru to meet its president and members of parliament before signing the memorandum of understanding.

The agreement “contains undertakings for the proper treatment and long-term residence of people who have no legal right to stay in Australia, to be received in Nauru”.

The price tag attached to the resettlement deal is significant in the context of the Nauru economy, which has a GDP of $160 million USD.

Refugee and human rights advocates warn the deal removes procedural fairness and may open the door to mass deportations.

A group of lawyers and academics said the government was dismantling legal protections.

Australia’s human rights commission raised concerns that the government’s proposal to change migration rules in its bid to deport the former detainees could strip the right to fair process.