Nauru’s president has defended his government’s offer to resettle three members of the NZYQ cohort of non-citizens from Australia – described by Australia as violent offenders – saying they have “served their time”.
Australia’s home affairs minister, Tony Burke, announced on Sunday that the three men – one convicted of murder – would be resettled in Nauru after the Albanese government struck a deal with the tiny Pacific nation for an undisclosed amount of money.
Interviewed by a government staffer and speaking Nauruan, the president, David Adeang, emphasised that the three men had “served their time” in Australian prisons and were no longer subject to any punishment.
“Australia is trying to send them back to their country but they are not wanted back home,” he said in an interview posted online. “So we accepted them from Australia. They are not Australian and Australia doesn’t want them.”
Adeang said Nauru had demonstrated its capability and willingness to resettle migrants during its history as an offshore processing site.
“Even for the refugees that came here, they have the same history: some of them killed people, some of them are disturbed people. But they will not do that here, instead they will live their life as normal and be happy along with us all.”
Adeang said the three men had been granted 30-year visas and the right to settle and work in Nauru.
“They will be living among us like normal free people … nothing stops them from working and being a normal citizen. They are also subject to our laws, they will also get same punishment if they break the law.”
At least one of the three men re-detained in Australia before his removal to Nauru has been told he would be flown to the Pacific island next Monday.
But sources in contact with the men told Guardian Australia a legal challenge was being contemplated.
The men were released from indefinite immigration detention to live in the community as part of a larger cohort of more than 280 non-citizens after the high court ruled in 2023 it was unlawful for the government to detain someone indefinitely. Two of the men had been taken back into detention in Villawood, in Sydney, while another was re-detained at Western Australia’s Yongah Hill detention centre.
The deal with Nauru will test laws passed in November that give the Australian government the power to pay third countries to accept unlawful non-citizens on a removal pathway, allowing them to be re-detained if they refuse.
The Australian government has refused to say how much it has paid Nauru to take the three men or if other concessions were offered but Burke said the deal had been proposed by Nauru.
Burke said he expected a legal challenge to the decision to remove the men whom he described as “violent offenders”.
“Whenever I make any decision, I presume that there’ll be a contest in the courts,” he said on Sunday, adding he was confident of the legality of the government’s position.
Australia now holds about 100 refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru. They are people who arrived by boat to Australia to claim asylum but were forcibly removed to Nauru under Australia’s “enduring” offshore processing regime with the Pacific nation.
Abdul*, an asylum seeker who had been held on Nauru for eight months, said while housing in the processing centre – which is not locked – was sufficient, “we cannot eat enough”.
“We cannot get enough money to buy enough nutritious food, we never have three meals a day, only two meals a day. Everybody has lost weight, and is very sick.
“And we are so stressed, we cannot sleep, we are worrying always about our future. We can’t find any hope, and we cannot spend our life like this for an indefinite period.”
Abdul said he did not believe the new transfers would be accepted within Nauru’s tight-knit familial community.
“Everyone sent here is suffering, we are all going hungry, and these people will also be suffering if they are sent here.”
Jana Favero, the deputy chief executive of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said the government’s actions sent “a clear message”: “If you are not born in this country, you will never be treated equally.”
She said the forcible transfer had been announced in the media, possibly in the shadow of a federal election being called, raising questions about the fairness of these actions.
“We are considering all options, including legal challenges, and will continue to fight for people’s rights.
“There has to be consideration of the lawfulness of banishing people offshore when they’ve been living as part of our community.”
Amnesty International said the government’s move to forcibly detain and deport people to Nauru was a “blatant attack” on the rights of people seeking protection and a “back-door deportation scheme” to continue people’s indefinite detention when it had been ruled unlawful by Australian courts.
Amnesty argued that the new policy effectively extended people’s indefinite detention elsewhere.
“This decision sets a dangerous precedent for future policies that could see more people removed without proper safeguards,” said Zaki Haidari, Amnesty International Australia’s refugee rights campaigner. “The Labor government must put an immediate stop to these deportations.”
As of December 2024, 64 of the NZYQ cohort are subject to electronic monitoring, while a night-time curfew has been imposed on 37.
