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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

Australia’s offshore processing facility on Nauru is now empty.

The detention centre has been a feature of Nauru’s identity for over a decade, but now we’re learning extraordinary details about how millions of Australian tax-payer dollars were spent in questionable deals to keep the facility running.

Last week, questions were raised over the then Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton, who knowingly awarded a lucrative contract to a businessman who had been accused of bribing Nauruan government officials.

Today, Associate Editor of The Saturday Paper Martin McKenzie-Murray, on what impact Australia has really had on Nauru, and whether we’ve spent billions of dollars to make a tiny island nation worse off.

It’s Wednesday August 2nd.

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ANGE:

Marty, Australia's used Nauru for offshore processing for decades now, but that's coming to an end. Why are the last asylum seekers on Nauru leaving? Why is the arrangement we have ending?

MARTIN:

I don't know if it's ending so much as being paused, perhaps. The regional processing centre on Nauru will remain, kind of mothballed, but ready to be revived, should there be any boat transfers. But yes, it's true that the last of the asylum seekers that were, kind of, languishing on Nauru have now left, mostly for Canada, the United States or New Zealand. But the idea of offshore detention as a principle still exists.

So the Nauruan processing centre, or detention camps, were revived in 2012 by the Gillard government.

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“Today I announce that we will begin a new initiative. The possibility of establishing a regional processing centre, for the purpose of receiving and processing irregular entrants to the region.”

MARTIN:

And it was kind of a revival of John Howard's Pacific Solution. That is, offshore detention.

Archival tape – John Howard:

“We have a proud record of welcoming people from 140 different nations. But we will decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come.”

MARTIN:

It's been maintained at enormous cost, many, many billions. And it's long attracted the criticism of UN inspectors, psychologists, all of whom I've spoken to over the years. I've read their reports detailing grave psychological distress. I spoke to parents whose children were self-harming. There was grave suffering, over many years, in those camps.

The departure of the final asylum seekers comes at an interesting time because now, finally, it seems some accountability might be arriving for what occurred during those years.

ANGE:

And Marty, those revelations about our time in Nauru, they go to the very top of politics. In particular, there's been revelations about Peter Dutton during his time as immigration minister. What do we now know about that?

MARTIN:

There's been successive stories in the Nine newspapers who have been running a long, months long, investigation into the Department of Home Affairs. Some of the more recent stories allege that major Australian companies, contractors of Home Affairs that were employed to run the camps, were improperly using public monies to, basically, pay off politicians in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

Archival tape – Sarah Ferguson:

“Peter Dutton, welcome to 7:30.”

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“Thanks, Sarah.”

MARTIN:

There was another report that says the then responsible minister Peter Dutton, was warned by the Australian Federal Police that they were investigating a certain businessman for bribery.

Archival tape – Sarah Ferguson:

“The Acting Commissioner briefed you in 2018, about its corruption investigation into Mr. Bhojani.”

MARTIN:

And nonetheless, one month after that warning, that man was given a multi-million dollar offshore detention contract.

Archival tape – Sarah Ferguson:

“You say you've got no recollection or record of that. Are you categorically saying it didn't happen?”

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“Well, Sarah, not just am I saying that, the Federal Police don't have any recollection of, or any detail of, what was briefed, and that's the response I've provided to the government.”

Archival tape – Sarah Ferguson:

“Nonetheless, they are clear that the meeting took place. Are you saying the meeting did or didn't take place?”

Archival tape – Peter Dutton:

“Well, I'm saying that we've checked our records. I don't have any record of it in my office, don’t have any recollection of having been briefed…”

MARTIN:

And this has escalated. The Prime Minister has invoked this and said the public deserve an explanation from Peter Dutton. And the Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neill, has been speaking about it as well.

ANGE:

Right. And this latest story that you're talking about here, it's about questionable dealings that Australia had on Nauru. But you've been reporting on Australia's role on Nauru for years. What kind of broader impact did these deals, and dealings, have on Nauru as a country?

MARTIN:

A profound one, in short.

The significance, or the centrality, of the RPC, the regional processing centre, is pretty difficult to overstate, I think. It helped warp and accelerate already existing corruption in Nauru.

It wasn't all that long ago, like a few decades ago, that Nauru was one of the wealthiest countries in the world, on a per capita basis. Successive governments failed to diversify the economy. And so if you fast forward to the middle of, about, last decade, almost the only revenue coming into Nauru came from the regional processing centre. Nauru is heavily dependent upon the Australian government's, kind of, largesse in this area. It wielded enormous power, because it controlled the money that flowed from these regional processing centres and that also meant controlling employment.

So much employment on Nauru was dependent upon these camps. And what that meant was, an increasingly, aggressively corrupt government. A government that was described by its former chief justice, Geoffrey Ames, as descending to autocracy.

ANGE:

And in 2018, you did some reporting and investigating around what was happening on Nauru. Can you tell me about that story, and what you uncovered then?

MARTIN:

Yeah, sure. In 2014, the Baron Waqa government expelled several opposition MPs from Parliament. They labelled them enemies of the state, for criticising the Nauruan government to foreign media

Archival tape – Baron Waqa:

“And some of these, some of our own people, are trying to create some scare tactic, as use scare tactics, things like that. But now, this is a different election.”

MARTIN:

The following year in 2015, there was a protest.

Archival tape – [Nauruan protest]

MARTIN:

And so at that time, the so-called Nauru 19, this was 19 people, some of those MPs, some of their friends and family were arrested and charged with rioting and unlawful assembly. At the same time, a blacklist was drawn up, which I saw. It comprised roughly 100 names, including the Nauru 19, their friends, family, sympathisers, and the Baron Waqa government drew up this blacklist to punish perceived political enemies, and to deny them employment.

What our investigation at The Saturday Paper revealed in 2018 was that the President, through his chief of staff, was directly appealing to the Department of Immigration, senior officials in the Department of Immigration, directly appealing to them for their help in enforcing their blacklist.

So this was a case of the Australian government actively cooperating, or helping the Nauruan government enforce, its unlawful blacklist. And I should state that in that year, in fact, only a couple of weeks before our report about this blacklist, an Australian justice, Geoffrey Muecke, was specially appointed to oversee the Nauru 19 case. He threw it out. He excoriated the Nauruan government for its corruption, its abuse of the judiciary system, its denial of justice to the accused, and he also found the existence of this blacklist unlawful.

The Australian government was indifferent. Or, in the case of the blacklist, actually kind of co-operative.

ANGE:

Coming up after this, will anyone be held accountable for what Australia did in Nauru?

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ANGE:

Marty, we've been talking about Australia's footprint on Nauru. You've been describing Australia not only turning a blind eye, but actually being complicit in these questionable dealings with the Nauru government, and having a questionable impact on Nauru’s society. But the then Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, is now being linked to some of these questionable deals and if there was anything improper about them, is there any way we could see further investigation of that, or even consequences?

MARTIN:

Well, first, it's gratifying to see these things ventilated, for one, and Nine's reporting is wonderful. It's to be commended. I approached the Home Affairs Minister's office this week, asking if they were aware of our reporting back in 2018. Because it seemed complimentary, or adjacent to, the stories that Nine have been revealing. They effectively said no comment, that while investigations are afoot, it would be inappropriate to pre-empt those and comment. Something that has changed since 2018 and our report about the blacklist, is the conception of a National Integrity Commission. That is, the National Anti-Corruption Commission. That is a major development. My understanding is that the AFP are investigating several issues as well. I've also seen documentation, voluminous documentation, about corrupt dealings between Australian businesses and former Nauruan government. I understand there's one case before court, I think there are several others. So this isn't going anywhere. And the existence of the National Anti-Corruption Commission should have a chastening effect upon the public service, whether it be ministers, their staff or public servants themselves. All I can say is that it's gratifying to see these things ventilated at the moment, and the potential for its referral to a National Anti-Corruption Commission, because certainly at the time of our reporting back in 2018, there was yawning indifference.

ANGE:

And I think broadly what this story shows is that Nauru wasn't, as you're saying, just this dumping ground or an easy solution for various Australian governments to put asylum seekers out of sight and out of mind. As you're saying, it was actually a lot worse than that. So what does this say about Australia's influence and power? That we used public money and public service to not only start a prison camp, but also to make a poor country worse?

MARTIN:

Yeah, there's something I've kept thinking about in the last few days. I spoke with one of the Nauru 19 and it still, to this day, mystifies, frustrates and confounds him, that the Australian government barely lifted a finger. It didn't ask for the Nauruan government to alter its practices, to improve its governance, to improve the strength of its democracy. Now, Nauru had something that the Australian government desperately wanted. But the inverse is true as well. Nauru had no revenue, it was profoundly dependent upon the money, or the income, coming through our offshore detention policy. And what this Nauruan 19 member was so frustrated by, is the complete indifference the Australian government had, to attaching conditions to its money. It completely indulged autocracy.

I spoke with the independent MP Andrew Wilkie last week, and he says that when we could’ve helped Nauru improve its lot, he says that we've failed to do that. He said our interests there were inherently selfish, that with our influence and our money we could have done more to improve Nauru's lot. But instead all we did was establish a gulag, and that's his word.

ANGE:

And Marty, what does that Nauru 19 member think about all of these reports and revelations coming to the surface? And what hope do they have about accountability going forward?

MARTIN:

Well, like me, they're gratified that they're being ventilated, and they want them pursued and properly investigated. Nauru was kind of warped, in a way, its corruption amplified. None of this should be surprising either, right? Like you had the full weight of the Australian government, both in its political will and its great finances, meeting the intractable, increasingly craven, corruption of Nauru.

So you had money and lawlessness, and it created a swamp. It created graft and waste. None of this should be surprising. But we got away with it for a long time because I don't think people really cared. Anyway, this member of the Nauru 19 is gratified, and he says that these things need to be investigated now as so they don't happen again in the future. And while the last asylum seekers may have left Nauru, the camp is still there, mothballed. It could be revived at any moment. And so if it is, his hope is that it not be governed in the way that it was in the past.

ANGE:

Marty, thanks so much for your time.

MARTIN:

Thank you.

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SCOTT:

Also in the news today…

The RBA has left the cash rate on hold for a second straight month, leaving it at 4.1 percent.

It’s only the third time the bank has pressed pause on interest rates since May of 2022.

And,

A former childcare worker is facing more than 1600 child abuse charges, in a case described by police as one of the most horrific they have ever seen.

The Gold Coast man has been charged with 136 counts of rape and 110 counts of sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 10. The offences committed in Brisbane, Sydney, as well as overseas.

I’m Scott Mitchell, filling in for Ange McCormack. This is 7am, and I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.

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