Transcript
The roughly 900 men held on Manus were forcibly transferred there by Australia in the past three years. The vast majority of them have been found to be refugees. Along the way, reports of human rights abuses, deaths and systematic cruelty towards those held on Manus have piled up. Grant Bayldon from Amnesty International New Zealand says the NGO welcomes the sign that Manus will be closed, but is still seeking accountability from Canberra.
"What we've seen from Australia is still no acknowledgement that it's programme is illegal and that it's been a human rights disaster; that it has deliberately abused and inflicted cruelty on people who have just been looking for safety. So really, we need to know from the Australian government what will happen to the people on Manus now, and what we're saying to them is those people need to be safely resettled in Australia."
The Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, says his government will help PNG with the closure but has given no timeline.
"Well, I'm not going to go into the timeline because this is an issue for PNG. The detention centre there is part of PNG sovereign territory and we'll work with the PNG government to provide assistance and we'll work towards closure as quickly as possible."
The refugees have indicated they do not want to be resettled in PNG which lacks a reputable resettlement policy. But Peter Dutton has reiterated that none of the refugees will be resettled in Australia - Canberra is anxious not to provide incentives for people smugglers to bring more boat people. The human rights lawyer, Julian Burnside QC says that people smugglers only have business because there are people who are desperate to find a safe place to live.
"And of course in Australia, our boat people problem, so-called, is minuscule. We get very small numbers and I think most other countries will look at us and say, what, you really want us to resettle these people for you? Poor tiny, crowded Australia, you know, it's ridiculous."
Earlier this year, a New Zealand offer to take 150 refugees from Australia's offshore centres was rebuffed by Canberra. Prime Minister John Key says the offer remains on the table.
"It's there. The Australian government is well and truly aware of it. If that's something the Australians want to take up, they'll come to New Zealand and exercise that right, and they've got the right to do that."
Meanwhile, on Manus, the local community is bracing itself for the centre's closure, which means significant job losses and other fallout. The local MP Ronny Knight says locals have been made scapegoats for criminal abuses by staff of the Australia-based contractor running the centre.
"Right now we have three rapists from Australia still on the run. They were flown out the next day after they raped a young girl who was working there, never brought back for justice. The Reza Berati murder (case of an Iranian asylum seeker who died at the Manus centre in 2014 in a brutal assault) we have two of our young men serving prison time for his murder, when the last people seen kicking this guy in the head were a New Zealander and an Australian. And they were never questioned about it."
While Canberra funds and effectively controls the offshore centre's operations, it has consistently said that responsibility for Manus rests with PNG.
