Migration experts, including former senior officials in Australia’s immigration department, have urged the government to close its offshore detention camps after the extent of abuses in the detention regime were revealed by the Nauru files. The government has consistently maintained that offshore detention is necessary to act as a deterrent to people smugglers and asylum seekers who might try to come to Australia by boat. In three years since the reinstitution of offshore processing, only one country, Cambodia, has agreed to accept refugees from Australia. We need policies founded on respect for human dignity Jane McAdam, UNSW“Transferring asylum seekers to offshore processing centres was never going to be a durable solution,” she said. Brennan argued the indefinite warehousing of people in offshore detention was not necessary to stop boats, and that moving people out of those detention centres would not restart boats coming to Australia, because Australia was capable of successfully interdicting boats leaving from Indonesia.

Source: The Guardian August 15, 2016 21:58 UTC