Transcript
JULIAN BURNSIDE - They really do not like the refugees although they're perfectly happy to get the money that comes from them and the locals it seems resent their presence. I mean, there are plenty of reports of refugees being assaulted and mistreated by Nauruan locals. These are Asylum seekers who have been sent there by Australia. They've been assessed by the Nauruan processing authority as refugees legally entitled to protection and so they then are able to come and go from the camp and one woman in particular was picked up by some Nauruan locals and was rape and was left on the roadside and when she complained to the police, the police simply went off and spent a couple of hours at a sporting event before they did anything about this woman's condition and complaint. In one respect, there and typically to foreigners is not really surprising. Nauru of course was rich in phosphate and I think by the 1960s or '70s the Nauruans had the wealthiest country per head of population anywhere in the world. Then of course the phosphate ran out. All proceeds of the phosphate mining had been invested carefully in various places, but every carpetbagger in town came through the place and ripped them off until it is now essentially a bankrupt nation state. There is no obvious economic activity on Nauru except what derives from the rather disreputable Australian use of the place to warehouse refugees and it's not surprising. This is a group of people who have no ready source of income and they see rich foreigners, mainly from Australia, coming in and using the place to deal with, what is thought to be a domestic problem, namely the people arriving in Australia looking for a safe place to live. It's even sadder of course for people who are sent there by Australia, forced there against their will for processing and then removal. The Australian government have made it very clear that people assessed as refugees on Nauru will never be allowed to come to Australia even though Nauruans can, so Nauru appears trying to find other countries willing to take refugees off their hands and other countries are saying, well hang on? Why should we take them? That's Australia's responsibility. So Nauru is really caught in a difficult position and to that extent I have some sympathy with them.
BEN ROBINSON DRAWBRIDGE - Yeah, it's on the other hand they seem to be trying to hide their operations from the outside world and not allowing journalists to visit.
JB - Forgive my cynicism, but I expect that is a direct product of Australia's directions to Nauru. It's in Australia's interest to hide what happens to people who are forced there by our government and I suspect because the Australian government is a source of Nauru only income, Nauru will do whatever Australia tells it to do. I think most Australians would be shocked if they knew in detail what is actually happening on Nauru, so it's in the interest of Australian government to make sure that Australians don't find out. Actually a couple of Australian journalists have been able to get to Nauru and report on it, but it's been journalists who are conspicuously perhaps of the Australian government.
BRD - Given that Nauru will be hosting the Pacific Islands forum next year, would you expect to see some change in its policy of welcoming journalists?
JB - A bit difficult to predict it. It's a good question. I think Australia will still have an interest in preventing the Australian public from learning the truth about what's going on in Nauru. Nauru maybe hoping to have sorted out the situation by then or the alternative is Nauru will have received promises of much larger amounts of money from Australia. In which case, the attitude to Australian journalists I suspect will remain unchanged or alternatively it maybe that there policy in relation to journalists shift just enough to allow journalists to go there and report on the forum, but not report on what's happening to the refugees.
