This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Australia’s immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has accused asylum seekers of setting themselves on fire, deliberately self-harming, or making false allegations of sexual assault in order to come to Australia.

On Thursday Dutton dismissed the revelations contained in the Nauru files published by the Guardian, which contain graphic reports of sexual assault, child abuse and self-harm written by detention centre staff and said: “Most of that’s been reported on before.”

He said: “I won’t tolerate any sexual abuse whatsoever. But I have been made aware of some incidents that have been reported, false allegations of sexual assault, because in the end people have paid money to people smugglers and they want to come to our country.

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“Some people have even gone to the extent of self-harming and people have self-immolated in an effort to get to Australia, and certainly some have made false allegations in an attempt to get to Australia.”

Dutton’s comments were the first he has made since the Guardian’s publication of more than 2,000 leaked incident reports from the Nauru detention centre.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said Dutton’s comments were abhorrent.

“Comments by minister Dutton this morning that incidents involving child sexual abuse may be fabricated are abhorrent. To attack a child for telling an adult – someone they should trust – that they’ve been abused is unthinkable.



“It is unacceptable for the Turnbull government to continue to send people to an island prison in which we know children are experiencing abuse and violence.”

Dutton’s comments followed a commitment from Labor to reintroduce a private member’s bill to parliament to impose mandatory reporting of child abuse in offshore immigration detention after the leaked reports detailed systemic abuse of children.



Labor, which reopened Nauru and Manus and supports offshore processing as a policy platform, stopped short of calling for Australia’s offshore detention camps to be closed. It said a royal commission into the abuses into detention was not needed.

Two UN bodies – Unicef and and the UN’s high commissioner for refugees – have called for all asylum seekers and refugees to be removed from offshore detention, while Gillian Triggs, the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, said an Australian royal commission could investigate “matters in which Australia is internationally responsible”.

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Shayne Neumann, Labor’s spokesman on immigration, told ABC’s Lateline on Wednesday night that Labor’s migration amendment (mandatory reporting) bill, put before the last parliament last October, would be reintroduced.

The bill would require every person working in any Australian-funded facility, including offshore detention camps, to report any form of child abuse to the Australian Border Force commissioner, who must, in turn, report it to the relevant police authority and child protection agency. Neumann said Labor would also propose the creation of an independent children’s advocate.

“We need action now,” he said. “An independent children’s advocate would act on each case individual case, dealing with each case as it does in any court.”

Neumann said immediate action to protect children was needed rather than a public inquiry. “We don’t need a royal commission to tell us that there are real problems here.”

He said the abuses on Nauru were, ultimately, Australia’s responsibility. “It’s all very well for the government to say, ‘Look, it’s Nauru’s problem’ – we are paying taxpayers’ money, we have indirect responsibility, we cannot abdicate a responsibility for vulnerable people, women and children and men in these circumstances.

“We must get back in the game ... it seems inaction and inertia is the government’s approach in this regard and we should not find this acceptable and the Australian public doesn’t find it acceptable.”

Malcolm Turnbull said on Wednesday the incident reports would be “carefully examined to see if there are any complaints ... or issues ... that were not properly addressed”.

Nauru files reveal cases of alleged sexual violence and child abuse not disclosed to parliament Read more

The Department for Immigration and Border Protection issued a statement saying the documents published by the Guardian were evidence of “the rigorous reporting procedures that are in place in the regional processing centre”.



All alleged incidents in detention had to be reported and, where necessary, investigated, the government said.

“Many of the incident reports reflect unconfirmed allegations or uncorroborated statements and claims – they are not statements of proven fact. The Australian government continues to support the Nauruan government to provide for the health, welfare and safety of all transferees and refugees in Nauru.”

But Triggs took issue with the government’s response. “These are not unsubstantiated allegations,” she told ABC Breakfast on Thursday. “Most of them are incident reports where professionals of one kind of another have reported this evidence.”

Triggs said she had examined the reports published in the Nauru files: “We’re not seeing change and we’re seeing, of course, an environment of secrecy.”



Michael Bochenek, senior counsel in the children’s rights division of Human Rights Watch, interviewed asylum seekers on refugees on Nauru in July for a report issued in conjunction with Amnesty International.



He said most of those on Nauru had been held there for three years, “much of that time in overcrowded tents in prison-like conditions”.

“They regularly endure violence, threats, and harassment from Nauruans. Nearly everybody I interviewed told me that their mental wellbeing had deteriorated sharply as a consequence of the abuses they’ve suffered and the prolonged uncertainty they face about their future.”

From pleas to threats to harm: files reveal escalation of trauma on Nauru Read more

In the wake of the publication of the Nauru files, dozens of human rights, legal, religious and medical groups have demanded the Australian government put a stop to the suffering of asylum seekers and refugees in its offshore processing regime.

The acting chief executive of the Refugee Council of Australia, Tim O’Connor, said all asylum seekers and refugees in offshore detention should be brought to Australia immediately.

“The clear evidence of abuse included in these thousands of pages of documents compiled by Australia’s offshore immigration detention contractors is devastating proof of the systematic abuse that continues within the Australian initiated and funded offshore immigration detention program.”