It’s now been confirmed that Australia’s Senate will establish a Select Committee to review allegations relating to conditions and circumstances at the Australian-run Regional Processing Centre on Nauru.
Presenter: Adam Connors
Speaker: Peter Dutton, Australia’s immigration minister
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CONNORS: Last Friday, the Australian government announced the findings of the Moss Review, which looked at allegations of sexual assault at the Australian government’s detention centre on Nauru and claims Save the Children staff had coached asylum seekers to self harm.
The department of immigration has accepted all 19 recommendations from the report, including a call to support the government of Nauru to better investigate and prosecute incidents of sexual assault.
The vote to conduct the Senate inquiry, which will hear testimony under parliamentary privilege, was sponsored by the opposition Greens and Labor parties, and passed 31 votes to 29.
It comes as Cambodia’s interior minister and deputy prime minister, Sar Kheng, was also in Australia signing a deal to resettle asylum seekers there.
Moments after signing the deal with Cambodia, Australia’s immigration minister Peter Dutton said the school facilities provided to young people detained on Nauru is on par with Australia’s.
The minister also defended other facilities on Nauru, saying he’s visited hospitals in regional Australia which are worse than those treating asylum seekers.
DUTTON: I went to the educational facilities, the classrooms there where young people at taxpayer’s expense are being provided with English classes and schooling otherwise that is of a standard that is at least as good as I’ve seen in Australia. I also had the opportunity, the great privilege to go to Afghanistan to see our troops in Afghanistan, and the field hospital that I saw there and the hospital arrangements that provided medical support to our soldiers on the ground was not in my judgement not up to the standard that I saw in Nauru.
CONNORS: Australia’s immigration minister Peter Dutton.
The high level Cambodian delegation was also in Nauru this week, where the ABC understands a number of briefings were held for refugees interested in relocating to Phnom Penh.
But in one case, as few as three people turned up.
