Three Liberal backbenchers have urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to reconsider the party’s stance on detaining children in Australia‘s offshore detention program, saying the situation has become untenable.
The Herald Sun reports Craig Laundy, Julia Banks, and Russell Broadbent have publicly raised their concerns over the government’s hardline policy on asylum seekers, which sees an estimated 100 children and their families detained on Nauru.
Broadbent told the paper the situation amounts to “an embarrassing humanitarian crisis” that can be solved by the government in a way that’s “acceptable to the Australian people.”
The paper states Broadbent and Laundy met with Morrison last month to discuss the possibility of bringing at-risk children and their families from Nauru to Australia for medical care.
Under the proposal, the children and their families would be placed in onshore detention or on bridging visas, until the Australian government finds a third nation in which they can settle.
It is not believed Laundy, Banks, or Broadbent will cross the aisle over the matter, and hope to affect change within the Liberal party room.
Several other ministers, who remained anonymous, also voiced their support for a change to the government’s policy.
But Morrison, who was pivotal in the “Stop The Boats” policy when he was immigration minister, remains steadfast in his defence of the offshore detention system.
Speaking in parliament yesterday, the PM said the level of mental health care available to those on Nauru is a-okay, and swatted away claims Australia should house asylum seekers on our shores.
That statement comes days after Doctors Without Borders excoriated the offshore detention program for its crushing mental health outcomes and the desolation is causes young detainees, and called for all asylum seekers detained on the island to be removed as a matter of urgency.
Whether the calls to stop the regime from medical professionals – and from his own colleagues – resonate with the PM is yet to be seen. That said, Morrison is a man who kept a model boat labelled “I stopped these” on his desk for aeons, so…
