Australia’s immigration minister has confirmed Baby Asha will be allowed to stay in the country under community detention arrangements after doctors and campaigners fought to prevent her return to the asylum seeker detention centre on Nauru.

Peter Dutton, speaking in Brisbane on Sunday, said one-year-old Asha – who has been treated at the city’s Lady Cilento hospital for accidental burns – and her family would join 83 other people living in community detention.

But he has would not rule out the possibility of her being returned to Nauru once “matters were finalised,” saying he would not provide “special treatment” just because it was a high-profile case.

“The advice I have received is the doctors from the hospital have said the baby’s treatment has concluded and they would be happy for the baby to go out into community detention,” Dutton said.

“That’s what we have proposed all along but at some point, if people have matters finalised in Australia, they will be returning to Nauru ... I also think it is an important message to send to those people with children living on Nauru at the moment, that there is a continuation of the government’s policy.”



Fionnagh Dougan, chief executive of Children’s Health Queensland, said in a statement on Sunday that Asha would be discharged “within the next 24 hours” and that the hospital had been advised that she would be housed in the community.

“The department further advised that there is no imminent plan for the family to return to Nauru and the family’s case is under consideration,” she said. “Children’s Health Queensland is currently working with the department on finalising arrangements for the safe relocation of the family.”

Dougan said Asha had recovered well from burns sustained on Nauru and had been staying in the hospital’s family accommodation with her mother because she no longer required treatment in the burns unit.

“Thank you to all those involved in caring for Baby Asha and her family in recent weeks,” she said.







Reports had emerged earlier on Sunday that negotiations were under way to transfer Asha into community detention after protests erupted outside the hospital on Saturday night.

Baby Asha: protest swells at hospital amid fears of imminent removal Read more

Doctors had refused to release Asha to detention centre guards lest she be returned to offshore detention centre.

Amid signs on Saturday that border officers and their private security contractor Serco were preparing to act, hundreds of protesters surrounded the exits of the hospital on Saturday night and checked cars that were leaving to make sure Asha, who was born in Australia to Nepalese Christian asylum seeker parents, was not being smuggled out.

Prof Brian Owler, president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), told Guardian Australia he had been concerned at reports that security guards would be sent to forcibly remove Asha from the hospital, saying it would be a violation of Australia’s duty of care for Asha to be returned to Nauru.

“I spoke to a number of people last night including Bill Shorten, who then called the prime minister to seek reassurance that this would not happen,” Owler told Guardian Australia. “While it wasn’t confirmed that that wouldn’t happen ... the issue was at least raised with him.”

Concern Asha and would be moved was heightened on Saturday when her mother was placed in a communication blackout and was unable to be contacted by her lawyers or her advocate, Natasha Blucher. Transfers are commonly preceded by communication blackouts.

Blucher told Guardian Australia on Sunday that she had still not been able to get in touch with Asha’s mother.

Owler said doctors at the hospital had an “absolute ethical obligation” not to release Asha until they were certain she had a safe place to go saying: “you are not allowed to release a child into any situation where they might be exposed to harm. It is absolutely shown that offshore detention is harmful to children.

He said the AMA fully supported the Brisbane hospital staff.

“Of course there’s an ethical and moral obligation on them to keep that child in hospital. You wouldn’t expect them to release any child back into that situation so why would you expect them to do it to an asylum seeker?

“This is not a grey area, it’s very clear what your obligations are.”

However Owler said he did not support a boycott of the offshore processing system, which is being pushed by some in the medical profession, saying that it would not stop Australian doctors from going to treat people, and would just encourage the centres to hire more doctors from overseas.

Dutton, speaking on Sunday, defended the government’s border protection policy and said Baby Asha had always been bound for community detention rather than a return to the offshore processing system.

He suggested reports had been “hijacked” by refugee advocates, which he suggested were “more interested in their own media profile” than about the child’s welfare, and appeared to lump the AMA in with that group.

“My desire is to make sure we keep the boats stopped, get kids out of detention and we’re not going to deviate from that course,” he said. “There is no special treatment, no different treatment from this family. There wasn’t for the family before them and won’t be for the family after them.



“We are going to have a consistency of approach here because intelligence out of Indonesia recently was people smugglers were reporting the comments of [state Labor premiers Daniel Andrews and Annastacia Palaszczuk] ... to say that there was going to be a change in the policy.”

Owler accused the government of intimidating medical professionals.

“To have an act that suggests you can be prosecuted and jailed for two years is a completely different issue,” he said.

“The Border Force Act is a form of intimidation itself. And I have to say there are a number of other doctors who have spoken out, who do feel their current situation with calls of an aggressive nature from the department has been intimidating. That is a situation which can not be allowed to continue.”

He said the calls were “heavy-handed”.





Asha was born in Australia but transferred to Nauru with her family at the age of five months. She returned to Australia and was taken to hospital several weeks ago after being burned with boiling water on Nauru.

She and her family are among the 267 asylum seekers subject to a recent high court decision, which upheld the legality of the offshore processing system.

Doctors to propose boycott of Australian immigration detention system Read more

At a forum in Sydney on Sunday, the AMA called for a moratorium on children being sent back to detention centres, the immediate release of all children in both offshore and onshore detention centres, the establishment of a transparent and independent national statutory body of clinical experts to investigate the health and welfare of asylum seekers, and a revision of government policies.

In his speech to the forum Owler described the centres as “state sanctioned child abuse” and said the Department of Immigration and Border Protection was “pulling apart the moral fabric of this country.”

“There are times, in any nation, where the medical profession must act in the interests not only of our patients as individuals, or for patients in a health system, but it must act in the national interest,” Owler said.

In a statement on Sunday, Labor’s immigration and border protection spokesman, Richard Marles, said Asha’s care “must be in accordance with treating doctors’ advice” and called on the government to handle the case “with sensitivity” and in accordance with its international obligations.

“The government must give an assurance to the Australian community that it is caring for Baby Asha in this way,” Marles said.

He did not comment on the possibility of her return to Nauru.