Home Affairs officials to front snap two-hour probe in Australia’s NZYQ criminal deportation deal with Nauru

A senate committee has been told there is no guarantee Nauru will accept all or any of the 354 criminal NZYQ cohort in a secret deal signed with the Australian government. Department of Home Affairs officials fronted a snap two-hour inquiry into Australia’s surprise $408m criminal deportation deal with the tiny island nation of Nauru. The committee was told the Australian government needed to apply for visas in Nauru for the criminal cohort, and if the Nauru government granted a visa, it would put people on a pathway to removal. “People who are granted a Nauru visa will be in scope,” Clare Sharp, head of immigration in the Department of Home Affairs, told senators. “It is designed to create a pathway for people who have no right to be in Australia but can’t go back to their country of origin.” Labor quietly announced the arrangement following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Nauru’s president David Adeang, which will involve Australia sending up to 280 former immigration detainees in the NZYQ cohort. Australia will also pay the Nauru government a further $70m each year to cover the resettlement costs to host the non-citizens who were released from indefinite detention following a High Court ruling in 2023. It could potentially cost up to $2.5bn over the life of the 30-year agreement. Department chiefs, including Ms Sharp, deputy secretary of immigration compliance Michael Burke, and first assistant secretary for offshore programs and international co-operation Ben Biddington gave evidence before the committee which started at 5pm but ran over its two hour limit on Wednesday. Assistant secretary for legislation Kevin Cunnington and assistant secretary for migration and citizenship litigation Peter Frank also appeared. Ms Sharp confirmed the MOU signed last week did not specify the number of individuals Nauru would accept, but was an act to consider applications from the Australian government for people in the NZYQ cohort. The committee was told if Nauru granted an individual a visa, then the person’s bridging visa would automatically cease in Australia. Ms Sharp said because the person had a visa and long-term right to stay in another country they would no longer be NZYQ affected and could be removed. She said the person would become an unlawful citizen in Australia and be taken into immigration detention. “The way the arrangement is established, it doesn’t operate on a principle that every person automatically becomes falls within scope,” she said. “It is a matter of we put forward a visa application and Nauru, as a sovereign state, considers whether to offer that person a visa or not.” “What you’re saying is Nauru could actually say no to, for example … the really bad ones, like the murderers, the rapists, the pedophiles and the contract killer if they wanted to, and they would remain here in the community?” coalition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash asked. “That is possible,” Ms Sharp replied. Although the Coalition has backed the move to deport the NZYQ cohort, shadow cabinet secretary Andrew Wallace said it was “important” the deal has “some degree of scrutiny on it”. Greens defence spokesman David Shoebridge, who is also a committee member, said up to 80,000 people may be affected by the deal with Nauru. “The fact that the Albanese Government is seeking to remove these rights from migrants shows how toxic and far right Labor’s immigration policy has become,” he said. “Everyone should be equal under the law, no matter where they are born, but that can only happen if people are given the right to be heard before decisions are made about them.” A statement from Mr Burke’s office said the deal contains “undertakings for the proper treatment and long-term residence of people who have no legal right to stay in Australia, to be received in Nauru”. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also repeatedly skirted questions calling for more details of the deal, stating Australia has “arrangements with governments”. “We have arrangements between governments and those arrangements are ones that we enter into across the board,” he told reporters on Wednesday.