Visa deal with Nauru to boot detainees from Australia

Three violent offenders are set to be removed from Australia after being granted long-term visas by Nauru in a deal with the Albanese government.

The Nauruans approached the federal government in a bid to strike a deal to take released immigration detainees, known as the NZYQ cohort, off Australia’s hands.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed 30-year visas have been issued to three members of the group who he said had failed the “character test”.

The trio were taken into immigration detention after Nauru’s intervention prompted the cancellation of their bridging visas.

All three are violent offenders, with one convicted of murder.

“They will be put on a plane and sent to Nauru as soon as arrangements are able to be made,” Mr Burke told reporters in Canberra on Sunday.

“That will not be within the next seven days.”

Powers were passed in December to allow the minister to pay third countries to take people in immigration detention.

The laws granting that power were in response to the High Court forcing the release of some 200 immigration detainees after ruling indefinite detention was illegal.

Their release caused a political headache for Labor after the coalition seized on alleged reoffending to slam the government for not doing more to keep them locked up following the court’s ruling.

Mr Burke argued the trio weren’t being indefinitely detained and flagged their pending deportation was likely to be legally challenged.

“Lawyers haven’t launched anything yet,” Mr Burke said.

“Whenever I make any decision, I presume that there’ll be a contest in the courts.”

Mr Burke, who recently returned from Timor-Leste, suggested more members of the NZYQ cohort could follow suit but it would be completely at the discretion of Nauru.

“Naura have described these three visas as first three and that’s how it should be seen,” Mr Burke said.

“On this particular arrangement, the only country that has come to us is Nauru ... and the matter was not discussed at all in Timor-Leste.”

He refused to outline how much Australian taxpayers would be on the hook for Nauru to take the three detainees off their hands but pointed out there was also a price in them remaining.

“There’s also a cost in the high level of monitoring under Operation AEGIS,” Mr Burke.

“There was also a cost when they were being held in detention, there was a cost before that when they were being held in prison.

“But no cost has been greater than the cost to the Australian community of their crimes.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton took aim at Labor’s record on immigration, saying the coalition faced another borders “mess” if it returned to power after the upcoming election.

“(But) we’re happy to have a look at arrangements that the government’s put in place,” he said in Darwin.