Nauru MPs and refugee activists say report 'unbalanced'

Transcript

Weeks out from both Nauru's and Australia's general elections, MPs and refugee activists have slammed an Australian television programme for its coverage of the refugee story.

Channel 9's A Current Affair aired an exclusive report this week, based at Australia's regional processing centre, that also featured rare interviews with Government MPs.

The reporter, Caroline Marcus, has defended her report and says activists themselves have distorted the truth.

Alex Perrottet has more.

Channel Nine says it researched Nauru for five months before travelling to the small island nation to see the conditions inside the regional processing centre. As it's promo suggested, it was the first television crew allowed into the country by the current government.

CHANNEL NINE: Inside Nauru's detention centre, the story that will stun Australia...now the truth, to see how asylum seekers and refugees really live...the first television team granted access.

Most media have been shut out of the country, courtesy of a non-refundable $8,000 Australian dollar application fee for a journalist's visa. The government has also shut down Facebook and suspended MPs that spoke to international media two years ago.It's also extremely selective of who can enter - only one Australian journalist, Chris Kenny, was admitted last year. While these facts were omitted from her report, Caroline Marcus spoke on the programme and denied there was any compliance with the Nauru government.

CAROLINE MARCUS: We certainly gave no undertakings whatsoever, we went in there from the start, saying we wanted... if we were going to do the story we had to have access to all the detention centres and be able to see everything and there were no conditions imposed on us.

Caroline Marcus told Sky News' Andrew Bolt the criticism from the refugee activists even before the programme was aired is proof of their bias and misunderstanding of the real situation on the island. The report featured interviews of asylum seekers and refugees and showed the variety of conditions they live in, as well as the lack of opportunity in Nauru and as well as their frustration at not being able to reach Australia, and being left with permanent uncertainty about their future. But a refugee activist, Ian Rintoul, says repeated pictures of flat screen televisions and air conditioning units at the start of the programme were proof enough of the intentions of the producers.

IAN RINTOUL: A Current Affair knew what kind of programme they had to broadcast, I think they knew what kind of programme they wanted before they went. They produced that kind of programme much to the approval of the Nauru Government and the Australian Government, I believe.

Mr Rintoul says there were also some embarrassing oversights.

IAN RINTOUL: The pictures of the burnt-out units at the Anuijo camp and it was left as just 'we think this is suspicious', someone who had been looking at Nauru would know that that was the site of an attempted suicide by a very desperate Iranian woman, but we're left with the picture that somehow it was an act of vandalism.

The reporter mentioned her bemusement that protests took place behind fences that were open for refugees to pass through, but Mr Rintoul says if she had the right information she could have informed viewers that protests outside the fences are banned. The report featured interviews with President Baron Waqa and Justice Minister David Adeang.Over the last term of government the men have suspended opposition MPs, cancelled visas of their opponents, deported the resident magistrate and barred the chief justice from returning to Nauru. Ian Rintoul says there's a long list of questions that could have been put to them.

IAN RINTOUL: Everyone could only be shocked, I think there's probably a name in the media business for the kind of interview, if you could call it that, which was done. There was no attempt to deal with why is there no judicial process, why have they expelled magistrates and cancelled visas, there's so many questions.

One of the opposition MPs suspended from parliament, Roland Kun, says the timing of the programme, three weeks from an election, was unfortunate and suspicious.

ROLAND KUN: They haven't made any contact with me, they haven't made any contact with any of my colleagues, in the last five months of their research work. I very much question their interpretation of independent and informed reporting if that excludes opposition MPs when they are visiting Nauru.

A Current Affair did not respond to requests for comment, but Caroline Marcus defended her report in a column for the Daily Telegraph newspaper:

CAROLINE MARCUS: After three or four years on the island, these people don't know what their future holds, a permanent option for resettlement yet to be finalised after the failure of the Australian government's $55 million Cambodia solution. Still, many average Australians would have watched the story...and wondered what all the complaining was about: on the whole, the refugees on Nauru are well-fed, most live in relative comfort and they're free to move around as they please.

Another suspended MP and former President, Sprent Dabwido, says he wasn't approached either and says the government should be more transparent and allow a variety of media into the country.

SPRENT DABWIDO: Honestly what I would love is to see two to three more media coming instead of just one, because I believe this media crew got attacked by media opposition before they came and maybe we should have two or three, and not like Government-selected, whoever wants to come should be allowed to come.

The country has one anti-government publication, The Beacon, but the writers, editors and publishers are anonymous, out of fear of retribution. Our sources say that although Facebook has been banned, many people use proxy servers and are able to discuss politics freely online. Despite repeated requests for comment, the Nauru Government has declined to respond and says it doesn't need to give any reasons why it talks to some media and not others.The Nauru election is on July the 9th.