Earlier in the week, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton claimed that there were no children in detention in Australia anymore. Finally.
Some people celebrated this news that never should have existed in the first place; some people mourned for the 50 children that are still in off-shore detention centres, on Nauru. Some people were incredibly dubious, mainly due to how quickly this happened.
The latter were seemingly correct.
Today, the SMH have published an exclusive story which debunk Dutton’s statement – apparently there’s still two children still in detention in Australia.
Fairfax claim that one child is 15 years old, from a country in Europe. Details of the other child aren’t known.
On Sunday, Dutton said that it was “a very significant day because the government is very proud of the fact that we’ve been able to get kids out of detention”.
“We promised that we would get kids out of detention and we have delivered on that promise.”
A migration agent called Marion Le told Fairfax that Dutton wasn’t telling the whole truth, and that the young boy (who she represents) was being held with his father:
“It’s a dishonest statement to say all children have been released from detention, when in fact at that time my client was [recently] removed from one detention centre and taken to another.He is 15 and still in detention. We don’t know how many children remain in detention who came from other means [aside from unauthorised boat].”
We will update this story as more information arises.
Source: SMH.
Photo: Pacific Press / Getty.
