‘There are hardly any children on Nauru and in New Guinea and we expect that by the end of this year there will be none,’ UK high commissioner says

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Australian government is set to move all children now held in immigration detention on Nauru to Australia by the end of the year.

George Brandis, the former attorney general and who is now the high commissioner to the UK, confirmed the plan in a radio interview in London early on Thursday morning.

“There are hardly any children on Nauru and in New Guinea and we expect that by the end of this year there will be none,” Brandis told LBC radio.

His comments follow reports in the Australian newspaper, which said it had been told that the remaining 40 children of asylum seekers still living on Nauru would be relocated to Australia by the end of the year.

The immigration minister, David Coleman, did not dispute the reports, but a spokeswoman told Guardian Australia he would not be confirming any timeline or numbers.

“The government has been getting about this quietly and sensibly, in accordance with our policies,” she said.

“These are policies that have not only reduced the number of children in Nauru, but ensured that no children are going to Nauru. By stopping the boats we have stopped the evil trade of people smugglers.”

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The shadow immigration minister, Shayne Neumann, welcomed the news but said it was overdue, and it was now “up to Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton to ensure children are actually removed from Nauru”.

“Let’s not forget, this news is completely opposite to what the government has been saying was possible – and they are still continuing to fight medical transfer cases in the courts,” he said on Thursday.

“Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton need to tell Australians what the long-term plan is for these kids. They can start by accepting New Zealand’s offer to resettle eligible refugees.”

The Australian reported that 46 babies have been born to asylum seekers held in indefinite detention on the island since it was reopened as a place of offshore detention in 2012, an average of eight a year.

Guardian Australia confirmed on Wednesday that the number of children had dropped below 40 owing to ongoing medical transfers, with the assistant minister for international development, Anne Ruston, saying all those children lived outside the detention centre itself, in the community with their families.

“There is no bigger issue at the moment than Nauru,” Ruston told the Australian Council for International Development’s annual conference.

Guardian Australia has confirmed that 135 people have been brought to Australia from Nauru since 15 October, including 47 children. Of the 135, just 49 were moved by the government without legal intervention by advocates or lawyers representing the asylum seekers.

The government spent $480,000 in the first quarter of this financial year on legal costs responding to or challenging court applications for medical transfers. It spent $275,000 in the whole of 2017-18.

Scott Morrison on Tuesday said the government was “quietly” removing children from the island nation, telling reporters this week the number had halved over the past nine weeks.

“We haven’t been showboating about it, we haven’t been doing any of those things,’’ the prime minister said.

There is no clear long-term plan for the people transferred to Australia who cannot be settled here under the Migration Act. The federal government has not accepted New Zealand’s offer to take 150 people a year and, in two years, the US has only accepted about a third of the 1,200 it said it could resettle. Dozens have been rejected for resettlement.

The children and families have been sent to locations across the country. Many are being housed in detention facilities.

Guardian Australia understands there are children in numerous hospitals receiving treatment, including at the Royal Children’s hospital and Monash hospital in Melbourne, the Royal North Shore hospital and Westmead Children’s hospital in Sydney, a hospital in Adelaide, the Lady Cilento in Brisbane, and some have gone to Gold Coast University hospital.

The Coalition MP Craig Kelly told Sky News on Wednesday the government wanted to “wrap that up” by the election.

Tony Abbott told Radio National the people “are not being resettled in Australia”. “They are being moved to Australia on a case-by-case basis if that is required for urgent and significant medical treatment,” he said.

Asked if they would stay in Australia, the former prime minister replied: “Nope, they are coming to Australia to be treated but the government has made its position absolutely crystal clear that people who come to Australia illegally by boat will never be able to settle here permanently.”

Asked how the number of medical transfers squared with his comments that people Nauru receive better medical treatment than in some regional Australian towns, Abbott replied that some conditions cannot be treated on Nauru.

The announcement comes after campaigns grew to include hundreds of charities, human rights groups, medical and legal organisations, as well as thousands of doctors. The UN high commissioner for refugees and Médecins Sans Frontières have called for the evacuation of all asylum seekers and refugees, saying the health situation is just as concerning for adults.

The Coalition MP Julia Banks last week pleaded for both parties to stop playing politics and bring families here.

The former human rights commissioner Gillian Triggs, who was hounded by the government for her 2014 report about the condition of children in offshore detention, said the report was “the best news we have heard for a long time”.

But she said focus must remain on the push to end the practice of offshore detention for good.

Triggs told the Radio National Breakfast host, Fran Kelly, that “political events and community approaches have quite simply forced the government’s hand”.

Those events include the win of the independent Kerryn Phelps in Wentworth, who centred her byelection campaign on getting children off Nauru.

Triggs said the federal court had also played a role, in ordering a number of children with “really urgent medical problems” to be brought to Australia rather than being sent for medical care in Taiwan, the government’s preferred option.

But Triggs expressed concern for the remaining 1,000 adults on Nauru and Manus Island – assuming that families are brought to Australia along with children – who she said were suffering similar mental and physical health complaints.

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“For very obvious reasons one tends to emphasise the children … but of course the same arguments apply to their parents, to their grandparents, but most especially to these young men who are on Manus for the most part,” she said.

“They have been there for five years or longer and they are in utter despair with very similar medical indications.

She said Abbott’s claims about conditions on Nauru were “disgraceful”.

“There has been endless reports and endless evidence to the same point and I think it’s beyond belief that senior politicians will continue to argue that this is a perfectly benign place,” she said.

According to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the 41 families moved to Australia included eight who were moved by court order, 21 under concessions made after legal intervention, and 12 moved at the initiative of Australian Border Force.

Guardian Australia has confirmed at least two chartered Nauruan Airlines flights have brought people to Australia in the past 10 days, including several to Adelaide on Monday.

There have been at least 17 children – with their families – housed in the Melbourne detention centre. It is expected that most will be moved within two to three weeks once housing, support services and schools have been organised.

George Newhouse, director of the National Justice Project legal organisation, which represents many of the families, welcomed the apparent announcement “for the most part”.

Newhouse said an end-of-year deadline may still be too long for some of the children left. “This move is long overdue,” he said.

“It is proof that strategic legal action and effective advocacy can create change even in a difficult political environment.”

Newhouse said the men and women still on Nauru were “in a bad state” and third countries needed to be found urgently for resettlement.