Hayden says if Australia continues to be a barrier towards a positive outcome for refugees and asylum seekers languishing in effective indefinite detention, then the New Zealand government should instead engage directly with the Government of Nauru on resettlement.
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Hitting back at the claims contained in the leaked documents, which date from 2013 to 2015, the Nauruan government said asylum-seekers had made up a lot of them in hope of being relocated to Australia.
Last week Guardian Australia published details of a trove of leaked official reports of over 2,000 incidents reported on Nauru over two years, including sexual abuse, assault and attempted self-harm, more than half involving children.
“Those who are fearless enough to report their assaults are then called liars by the very people who are supposed to be protecting them”, she told the ABC.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said some refugees were self-harming and filing false claims in an effort to get to Australia, views echoed by the Nauruan Government.
In a second tweet, the government blamed the Australian left-wing media and Green party MPs for using refugees as pawns for their political agendas. He elaborated saying “Because in the end people have paid money to people smugglers and they want to come to our country”.
More than 100 former employees of both the Nauru centre and a detention centre on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea have signed a letter calling for the detainees to be brought to Australia.
There are now 466 asylum seekers held at Nauru centre and about 900 refugees living in Nauru community.
A report based on interviews last month with those detained on Nauru conducted by researchers from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch found that asylum-seekers and refugees on the island suffered “severe abuse, inhumane treatment, and neglect”.
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“The government has long known about the abuse and inhumane conditions in Nauru: failure to rectify the situation is an admission that the suffering of the people there is a deliberate and calculated Australian policy”, says Mr.
