Senate calls for Nauru detention centre closure
from ABC News Australia

The Senate has passed a motion calling for the Nauru detention centre to be closed.

The Democrats secured support for the motion from the Greens and Labor Party after debate in the Senate this afternoon.

Almost 300 people, including children, are held on Nauru as part of the Government's Pacific Solution.

Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett told the Senate some of the detainees have been there for more than two years.

"What I'm very much wanting this Government to recognise is that whether or not it was the right thing to do two years ago, the situation now is that the right thing to do is to remove these people from detention," he said.

It seems that the more liberal political parties in Australia are uniting to oppose the Pacific Solution, which is the Howard government's (which is conservative) immigration policy, which is to put undesirable immigrants who want to live in Australia onto "detention centres" on various islands in the Pacific which the Australians are paying these countries (Nauru is the world's smallest republic) to run, until such time as the Australian immigration authorities process these people. The refugees on Nauru, who are mostly from Afghanistan, have been there for two years, and recently staged a hunger strike to call attention to their plight, which involves being stuck in a mismanaged detention centre on Nauru. It is important to note here that it's not like these detention centres are not off the coast of Australia like say, Ellis Island is- Nauru is a thousand miles or so away from Australia. The Athenaeum-the only place where you will get coverage on stories like this!

posted by santo26 | 12:31 PM