David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm going to read out the transcript of an interview between President Adeang of Nauru and Joanna Olsson of the Nauru Government Information Office. This interview was posted to Facebook on 17 February 2025 and has been translated by an independent translator. My thanks to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre for providing this copy.

Question:

GoodAfternoon Your Excellency, thisnews that Nauru has entered a newagreement with Australia where itstates that we willbe accepting non-citizens from Australiaknown as the NZYQ.

Who are these NZYQ?

Answer:

Um, It does not matter as much what they are called, what does matter is what type of people they are.

The particular group Australia is asking us to take are not people of Australia.

They are in Australia, they have committed a crime, served their time in jail and are now out and living within the communities of Australia.

Now leading their lives not unlike any other person living in Australia.

Now, Australia has been trying to return them to their home countries and have been unable to for multiple reasons.

Because they are unable to, Nauru and Australia have joined into a partnership, due to our history where we have been able to home people on our land; like people who sought asylum or those that are refugees.

To clarify, these people are not refugees.

They are regular people but their background or their history is that they have been to jail.

These days, they are free to roam around Australia and while they are no longer under penalties but they are not of that place and despite Australia's preference to send them home, they are unable to.

So that is what we have entered into, we will help Australia and take these people and allow them to live among us.

Question:

Regardingthisagreement,thisisgreatforAustraliaasfaras protectingtheircommunities.Wein Nauru, have wereached apoint where wecantake care of people likethis?

Answer:

We have looked at every corner of this arrangement.

This has been going on since last year.

It is not like we slept and woke up and got asked something big.

We have thought about it since last year that it is not unlike the RPC arrangement that we are still undergoing here at home.

If we remember, the people that have come here under the RPC arrangement are not without their own history, they have come from war-torn areas.

Some have taken lives, some have abused people and when they have come here, they have not interfered with anything.

They have just come here, they live their way.

They want to just continue their lives because we are a country and a people that are peaceful.

That is also our attitude at the moment, we say that these people that are coming, there are some that are just going to want to continue their lives and will want to build their lives up in a peaceful way, just like each and every one of us.

Question:

The visa they have, how is it different to the one we are offering to the RPC cohort? How long are they going to be in Nauru and what are the rules of their visa?

Answer:

When they are given the visa, it is clear to all of us that we have given them a place here. 35 If we say 30 years, then 30 years is what they are given.

Unless of course, we, your government, find a way for them to move around, for example; they get to go home.

The problem now is, Australia cannot return them home, these people are what you would refer to as stateless.

Their homelands do not want them and they do not have a way to go home.

And if over time we find a way to return them home then of course they will not reach the 30 years. But the Visa we are providing them to start is 30 years.

It's the same as everyone we brought in during RPC, they can work, we also encourage them to work, so they can feel like they contribute to our community, nothing will be stopping them.

But they will have a 30 year Visa rather than the shorter visas and that's the only difference. Otherwise, they are also subject to the laws of Nauru.

If they break the laws of our home, they will follow our normal legal process. Taking them to court, sending them to jail if needed, fining them if needed.

We are anticipating that now that we are talking, it is not like they are breaking the laws in Australia but Australia does not want them because they are not from there.

So we will take them for the time being,

We are not anticipating that they are wanting to come here and break laws, they just want to continue their lives.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll continue reading from the same transcript read out by Senator David Pocock.

Question:

Because of the background of these people, that you are saying have committed crimes.

The safety concerns of the people of Nauru, what does the government have to say to ease their gut about the fact and the shock that they are living within their community?

Answer:

The first thing we have to remember is that these people have their time in jail. They have a history yes, but they also have a present.

And the present of this people now is that they are living within the people of Australia and are not committing crimes, some of them are just enjoying their lives and continuing their lives but they are not from there and Australia does not want them.

And for some reason, some legal reasons, they cannot be deported.

So, we are the solution to them being moved from there. I did wanna provide a solution.

But to address our own, its not that different from how we protected our community back when the refugees first came and after we allowed them out of detention to settle within our community, they also had a history and we also have a history, there are some that come out of jail here with their own histories.

We weren't harmed and we wont be harmed.

Of course, there are extra community safety arrangements that we will bring out to look after our community, maybe, for example, and help them (NZYQ) a little with their movements and to ease the shock of the community.

Because the biggest thing I see now is that there will be surprised people and we have to remember that this is not the first time we have let foreigners come to our home and it will not be the first time we have accepted foreigners with backgrounds that are not 100% pristine.

and we know how to handle arrangements like this and we also know how to empower the lives of these people and we know to take care of them.

And we all get along just fine. We hold that we will be fine.

We will bring out a lot of things for this and we welcome the input of the community if they want to give us their feedback on how to make them feel safer/more secure.

They can make contact with their relevant members of parliament and ministers to let us know.

I have also sat with the Opposition recently to give them all of the facts of this thing that we have entered.

So that they know what is true and what isn't true.

The Australian media will have their own spin on it but what I have given you is what is true to all of my knowledge.

There are three people that will come first, within days, maybe less than a week. We know their profile, what their names are, their backgrounds and their ages.

And we have already prepared them a space and we have prepared the safety protocols to protect them and to protect us.

And we are not overwhelmed, because we have already gone through these things. This is not new here.

The only new thing is that they are not refugees.

Question:

If the 30 years ends and we have not resettled them in another country, what is Nauru and Australia's Plan?

Answer:

Well I guess in 30 years time, there will have to be meetings between the Government of Nauru and the Government of Australia and what we're going to do about these people.

But there's a long way into the future,

I do trust however, that maybe before then, we will little by little be able to return these people home if they want that.

I also anticipate that these people will have family from Australia that will want to visit them here and we are not closed off to that, just like when the refugees were here, we allowed their families to visit them here, we opened our arms to them and we will do that with these people also.

I want to thank my colleague Senator Pocock and I want to thank the ASRC for joining with me tonight to tell the truth about this interview, because this is the interview that the government has refused to produce. This is an accredited interpretation of the interview that President Adeang gave when the announcement leaked out from Nauru—it did not come from our own minister—about a $2½ billion secret deal. This government have been trying to keep this secret from the Australian people, refusing to produce their own interpretation and refusing to tell the Australian people what the Nauruan president said.

I know that Senator Pocock and I read the transcript out in somewhat of a rush, but we did it because we weren't certain that we would get it on the record in the time that we had available. It should have been the government that told the Australian people about this. It should have been the government that had the decency to step forward and be honest with the Australian people about what the Nauruan president said. No doubt there are reasons why the government wanted to hide this, because President Adeang wrongly makes the statement, no doubt on advice from the Australian government, that none of the NZYQ cohort are refugees, which is plainly wrong. Did the government tell them that? Did our government mislead the Nauruan government? Do they adhere to what the Nauruan president said about these people not being refugees—none of them? They're probably also embarrassed about the fact that President Adeang made it very clear that he wants these people to return to the country they came from. We know that they have fled from persecution, by and large. Does the Australian government join with Nauruan president in wanting to send people back to persecution in Iran, in Iraq, in Russia and in Sudan?

Finally, we get to read the truth onto the record. I want to again thank the ASRC for the work they've done on this. (Time expired)

Senate adjourned at 20:30