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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Australia's Warm Welcome

 Former security guard and head of occupational health and safety, Rod St George, at the Australian-run detention centre on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, exposed the the appalling conditions at it.

“I’ve never seen human beings so destitute, so helpless and so hopeless. In Australia, the facility couldn’t even serve as a dog kennel. The owners would be jailed.” He added: “I took the position with every intention of making the place a safer environment, but it proved quite rapidly to be an impossibility… I felt ashamed to be Australian.”

The centre on Manus Island, about 200 miles north of the PNG mainland, is used to process Australia’s illegal immigrants, “boat people”. Anyone arriving by boat would be barred from making a life in Australia. Instead, if deemed genuine refugees, they will be resettled in PNG, which on an annual UN index of health, education, income and life expectancy ranks 156 out of 186 nations. Australian ranks No 2.

At Australia’s other offshore detention centre, on the Pacific island of Nauru,  detainees recently burnt down buildings during a riot.

 Australia said it was looking for another Pacific nation to host a third offshore centre. The Solomon Islands appears the most likely contender.

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