Australian immigration officials are covertly deluding and conning Nauru

Project SafeCom Inc.
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Australian immigration officials are covertly deluding and conning Nauru

Media Release
Monday August 27, 2012 10:00am WST
For Immediate Release
No Embargoes

"Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and Immigration Department officials should publicly release the Memorandum of Understanding between Australia and the world's newest United Nations Refugee Convention signatory Nauru, because we cannot explain Nauru's enthousiasm otherwise than to suspect that Australia has been "conning and deluding" Nauru over its planned offshore refugee processing policies," WA Human Rights group Project SafeCom said this morning.

"It all looks like a most disgusting example of how Australia has politicised its refugee policies and how deeply politicised the Department of Immigration, charged with the task of engaging in an open and impartial refugee claims assessment, has once again become. Nauru spokesman and Foreign Affairs Minister Kieren Keke expressed nothing but enthousiasm (see report below) and confidence that this assessment will take place fast, but this claim flies in the face of statements by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who has openly espoused the Houston's Expert Panel's euphemism "no advantage test", a phrase that is synonymous with the Immigration Department's previously proposed, and no doubt previously implemented "Go Slow Processing" tactics, spokesman Jack H Smit said.

"My published academic research [1] has provided clear evidence that "go slow processing" was first proposed by the Immigration Department in Fraser government Cabinet submissions in 1979 amongst a wide range of harsh punitive measures, all based on the presumption that because asylum seekers were "uninvited" they should be called "queue jumpers" and they should be discriminated against. The Immigration Department has never moved away from its extremist, harsh and punitive positioning following the abolition of the White Australia Policy, and now that the abysmal "go slow processing" policy has been officially accepted by the Gillard government, another plank of the Immigration Department's deeply entrenched asylum seeker "damnation policies" has become officially established."

[1] Research thesis is publicly available at http://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/419/

"It is an abject scandal that Australia's heinous and manipulative asylum seeker policies signify Nauru's first experience with the UN Refugee Convention - and on all evidence it appears that Australia has already started manipulating the United Nation's most recent Refugee Treaty recruit. Chris Bowen has some serious questions to answer about how covert the implementation of the "Go Slow Processing" policy exactly is, and whether or not he has informed the Nauruan government about his manipulative intent of asylum seekers who soon will find themselves on the island."

Jack H Smit
Project SafeCom Inc.
[phone number posted]

Nauru told asylum claims to be done fast

AAP / news.com.au August 25, 2012 1:58PM

NAURU'S foreign minister says the Australian government has given him assurances that the assessment of asylum seekers detained on the Pacific Island will be done as quickly as possible.

Kieren Keke said the assessments of asylum seekers and attempts to resettle them would be done with speed.

"I've received assurances that both of those processes, both assessment and identifying where that person who's identified to be a genuine refugee will be taken as quickly as possible," Dr Keke told ABC radio on Saturday.

Federal parliament recently passed legislation to allow offshore processing of asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

An independent panel recommended the government urgently restart offshore processing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.

Defence personnel will be deployed to Nauru over the coming weeks to begin setting up temporary accommodation.

Dr Keke said the first site had several buildings in good order but those would be used mainly for administration.

"The site is lacking buildings for accommodation and so initially - my understanding is that that will be for a number of weeks - the persons would be accommodated in tents," he said.

He said there were some water and waste management issues at the site.

Australian and Nauruan officials are scouting for a second site as the first site would have a limited capacity to hold and assess asylum seekers, Dr Keke said.

"I'm not sure what that capacity is but it won't be able to accommodate the final number that is expected to be accommodated in Nauru," he said.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has said the island should be ready to take 500 asylum seekers by the end of September.

Nauru will be able to hold 1500 people when it is fully operational.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/nauru-told-asylum-claims-to-be-done-fast/story-e6frfku9-1226457943553

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