At a press conference on Sunday called in response to the extended vigil, Mr Dutton said the hospital's doctors had finished treating Asha and "would be happy for the baby to go out into community detention". Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would like the public to believe protesters like Scotia Monkivitch were wasting their time at Lady Cilento Hospital. Credit:Cameron Atfield "As I say that's what we've proposed all along but at some point if people have matters finalised in Australia then they will be returning to Nauru," he said. When asked why this proposal hadn't been made clear previously, the Immigration Minister told journalists it had "been made very clear" and they'd been "hijacked" by advocates more interested in their own media profile than the baby's interests. He said there were 83 asylum seekers, including women and children, living in the community after travelling to Australia for medical assistance and Asha and her family would add to that number.

If Asha was going to be moved into community detention all along, then where did the doctors' refusal to allow her to leave until "a suitable home environment is identified" come from? Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says baby Asha and her family will eventually be returned to Nauru. Credit:Andrew Meares Why not let the people protesting outside the hospital know they were wasting their time a week ago and the very thing they were calling for had already been decided? Instead, when asked more broadly about the campaign to let 267 asylum seekers on the mainland for medical treatment stay in the country on February 17, five days into the Asha brouhaha, Mr Dutton said they were able to return to Nauru once medical support was provided. Baby Asha has been released into community detention but faces deportation to Nauru.

The next day, when Ray Hadley on 2GB/4BC radio asked him specifically about Asha, the member for Dickson said he wouldn't be "pressured" into changing policy. "If people have received medical assistance and the assistance is no longer required, if they've recovered from their medical condition, then they'll be returned to Nauru," he said. "We'll have a look at each case and go through the individual circumstances and we'll have a look compassionately at individual cases." If the plan all along was to have Asha moved into community detention on the mainland, then Mr Dutton could have saved his government a lot of heat both at home and internationally by simply saying so on either of these occasions. He could have said as much in a statement when contacted for comment by Fairfax Media on February 13 when news of the doctors' decision first broke.