“Effectively a Death Sentence”: Shoebridge Visits Refugees Stranded in PNG by Australia

Sixty-odd refugees that arrived in Australian waters by boat about 10 years ago have been stranded in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea.

The majority of these men are the forgotten remnants of hundreds of people who were condemned to long periods in offshore detainment in the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre over the period July 2013 to October 2017, when the Australia government was forced to close down the facility, following the PNG High Court having ruled its existence was unconstitutional in April 2016.

After Manus closed, our government then held the detainees in various centres and accommodation sites, prior to moving them all to the capital, Port Moresby, where the remaining few now reside. 

And while our nation had been funding these men’s survival, the Morrison government cut a deal with PNG to provide final financial assistance for these men in late 2021, which ran out in mid-2023.

This has meant that periodic reports about the men our nation has dumped in PNG have emerged, warning that they’re at risk of not paying their rent and being evicted, as well as their neither being able to buy food or medical supplies.

The Albanese government resolved to strike a new funding deal to cover the expenses of these men with the PNG government midyear this year, as Port Moresby threatened to send them back to Australia in 2023, if our government didn’t do something about them, after it arranged to send them there and seemingly dump them permanently.

Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge paid a visit to Port Moresby over 9 to 12 December, in order to check on the welfare of these men and to raise attention to the fact that the new funding deal to support them is inadequate, as well as to highlight his concerns that federal Labor may be clearing up this mess in PNG, so it can launch a new deportation drive to that country.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to Australian Greens immigration spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge about just how hideous our government has become in respect of asylum seekers.

Following the last sitting week of parliament for 2024, you took a trip to Port Moresby to meet the remaining dozens of Manus Island offshore immigration detainees that a great many Australians would be shocked to find continue to remain in PNG, as our government has stranded them there.

Senator Shoebridge, what did you find when you visited PNG last week? How are these people surviving?

There are some 42 people, who were initially detained on Manus, now in Port Moresby, together with another 17 who were sent to PNG from Australia after Manus shut.

So, there’s about 60 people in total.

These people have overwhelmingly been accepted as refugees by the UNHCR. They are in some of the most distressing situations you could imagine.

The bulk of them have suffered more than a decade of intentional cruelty at the hands of the Australian government, as they’ve been detained in brutal torture-like conditions on Manus Island and then left in limbo for years in other detention centres and more recently, in Port Moresby.

Their accommodation, which is being provided by the PNG government is barely adequate at the moment. It is a form of secure accommodation that could best be described as rundown motel-like conditions.

They’re being supplied with basic food and medical supplies. But all of that is about to be terminated by a new deal that has been struck between the Australian government and PNG.

Some of these people are in such poor health – mental and physical – that they can’t or won’t leave their room. Some are surviving on next to no food, being on effective hunger strikes.

These are some of the most marginalised people you can imagine, and the thought that the government is going to further cut their support and assistance is plain criminal.

So, what does the new deal that the Albanese government announced it was establishing with PNG in July in relation to these men comprise of? 

The new deal that they’ve been offered, with a factsheet that has clearly been drafted by Australian home affairs, involves the current secure accommodation, medical support and food being removed and, in its place, they will be given a single weekly allowance of some 900 Kina.

K900 equates to about AU$350.

Port Moresby is one of the most dangerous cities on the planet, especially if you are identified as being from a non-Melanesian minority.

The reality is that K900 would not get you secure accommodation, let alone the medical supplies and food that people need to survive.

The Morrison government struck a deal in December 2021, which involved funding its PNG counterparts to provide welfare and support to the remaining refugees via local service providers.

Why has federal Labor gone back this year and established another deal with PNG?

Morrison cut a one-off exit payment to PNG, which was never adequate to cover the ongoing expense of the people that Australia had deported to Manus Island and to PNG.

There is a very real concern that Australia is effectively cleaning out the stables, if you like, trying to deal with the residual problems from the Manus Island disaster with PNG, in order to establish a fresh arrangement to deport even more people with the legislation that’s just passed Commonwealth parliament.

That is one of the primary concerns I have, that the government is cleaning house and preparing yet another way of bribing Papua New Guinea to take asylum seekers who have reached Australia.

So, Australia might be dealing with these men it has stranded in PNG, so it can send more people there? 

That is one of the very real concerns. The fact that Australia has abandoned these people in Port Moresby and left them to the hands of the Papua New Guinea government has been an ongoing irritant in the relationship between Papua New Guinea and Australia.

This is a deal to try and address that and in doing so, prepare the way for even more deportations, with a fresh bribe being given to the PNG government to accept more asylum seekers.

So, what about these 60-odd men stranded in PNG, who they’re now providing with a K900 living allowance, what is to happen to them in the future? 

Neither the PNG government nor the Australian government have articulated what the future will hold for these men.

Both governments are making the bold assertion that people will somehow magically find secure accommodation, and obtain medication and find food, with an amount of money that is manifestly inadequate.

It won’t come close to cover even the most basic costs.

If they do have their accommodation withdrawn, and they are forced to try and survive on this allowance, it is effectively a death sentence for some of the men involved. It is generally shocking to realise that.

I met around 30 of these people in the course of my visit. They were already having their medical claims refused. They were running out of essential medication for diabetes, mental health and health conditions.

They had significant conditions that are going untreated already, such as tumours and orthopaedic injuries.

So, the idea that their medical support will be entirely withdrawn, for some of these men, it is effectively a death sentence.

And lastly, Senator Shoebridge, how should we consider what the Australian government has done here? Should our nation be dumping desperate people in other countries? What should be happening here? 

This is the end result of two decades of creative political cruelty between the Labor Party and the Coalition.

For most of the politicians in Canberra that voted these laws through, Papua New Guinea is a long way away, so these people simply don’t matter.

One of the primary reasons I went to Papua New Guinea was to do ground truthing and to meet the people whose lives have literally been thrown away by Australian politics.

The obvious solution to this is for Australia to bring these people onshore, stabilise and address their most pressing medical conditions to seek to make them well.

Given that Australian politics will lead to a stubborn refusal to settle them here, Australia must find these men permanent homes in New Zealand, Canada or the United States.

Even the toxic politics of Labor and the Coalition should be able to rise to that.

Main image: Senator David Shoebridge speaks with some of the asylum seekers who’ve been dumped in PNG by the Australian government