Latest news with #Nauru
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Scott Morrison sought advice to obstruct Nauru asylum seekers from accessing abortions, documents reveal
Scott Morrison overrode medical advice in the case of an asylum seeker in offshore detention trying to access an abortion, and had previously sought advice that would effectively prevent access to terminations entirely, ministerial advice reveals. Documents released under freedom of information laws show Morrison, in 2014 as immigration minister, had sought advice to deny the transfer of women to a hospital on the Australian mainland to access termination services before 20 weeks' gestation. Abortion is illegal on Nauru, except to save the mother's life, and carries a prison term of up to 14 years. Termination laws differ across Australian states, but if pregnant women in offshore detention were prohibited from accessing abortion services in Australia until after 20 weeks, it would be far more difficult to access those services at all. A handwritten note by Morrison, on a document dated June 2014, stated: 'I would also like advice on denying transfer pre 20 weeks for pregnant women.' In the same document, Morrison specified that women should only be transferred to Brisbane, not South Australia, the Northern Territory or Victoria for abortion services. Morrison did not respond to requests for comment, and Guardian Australia cannot confirm what advice he received. In the case of a woman, who was not identified in the redacted documents, medical advice recommended she be transferred to Victoria for an abortion, over Brisbane where she would have had to have waited a week for a hospital ethics panel to consider her case. That policy was in place in Queensland for women seeking a termination after 20 weeks' gestation. In Victoria, a woman could seek a termination without approval of a hospital ethics board until 24 weeks. Guardian Australia understands the woman was taken to Brisbane, rather than Melbourne, where the panel deliberated on her case. One senior source, who spoke to Guardian Australia on the condition of anonymity, said Morrison did not specifically target abortion access. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email David Manne, a prominent refugee advocate and lawyer, said in his view the broader immigration policy at the time was part of an 'extreme deterrence agenda'. 'Inherent in the [broader] policy was conscious, calculated cruelty,' he said. 'Clearly, [the policy] was far more than reckless indifference, it was deliberate. '[It was] part of a system that was underpinned by the extreme deterrence agenda … the basic rights and dignity of people subject to the policy were essentially irrelevant.' Jana Favero, the deputy CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), who was an advocate for the centre at the time, said the documents were 'outrageous' and 'consistent' with the ASRC's experience trying to help asylum seekers get medical transfers. 'It was extremely challenging and difficult for the medical transfer from people offshore, in particular women who were pregnant,' she said. Manne claimed the Abbott government was concerned asylum seekers and refugees were using medical transfers as a back door to get into Australia. Once in Australia, and in the Australian onshore detention system, an asylum seeker could go to the court to seek an injunction to prevent being sent back to offshore detention. '[They] could plead their case under law to resist being sent back to Nauru, to further dangers of the kinds that they'd already faced,' Manne said. This wasn't the only concern held by the government. Manne said the policy was based on deterrence, to stop others seeking asylum arriving by boat. 'If we make some exception, if there's a perceived crack of light in this policy, this could see the resumption of boat arrivals, that was clearly the thinking.' Later, in 2019, Peter Dutton, by then the home affairs minister in the Morrison government, accused women in Nauru refugee centres of using rape and abortion claims as a ploy to get to Australia. Over the 18 months from 1 January 2013 to 20 June 2014, IHMS, the government contracted healthcare provider for Nauru, said there were six pregnant transferees who were taken to the mainland for a termination. In June 2014, there were 289 women in detention on Nauru, according to data collated by the Refugee Council of Australia. Numerous internal and external reviews of offshore detention centres found instances of violence and traumatic living conditions, amid allegations and reports of rape, sexual assaults. An independent investigation, by the former integrity commissioner Philip Moss, commissioned by Morrison in October 2014, found evidence of rapes and sexual violence on Nauru and Manus Island, and said incidents were often under-reported. In 2016, Guardian Australia released the Nauru files, a collection of 2,000 leaked incident reports detailing harrowing instances of abuse on the island between May 2013 and October 2015. More than half of the reports (51.3%) involved children, even though children made up only about 18% of those in detention on Nauru during the time covered by the reports. Favero said the ASRC had performed its own audit on medical transfers at the time, and said it sometimes took up to 18 months for an asylum seeker to get help on the mainland. 'From the point where there was a [doctor's] recommendation for a medical transfer, sometimes it took up to 12 to 18 months for that to happen, and it only happened as a result of a huge amount of pressure including legal action,' Favero said. In February 2019, five years later, after Morrison became prime minister, Labor and the crossbench passed the medevac bill, against the Coalition government, that established a medical panel to oversee medical transfers of people from offshore detention. That law lasted less than 10 months, before it was repealed by the Morrison government in December that year. 'The decision [to transfer a patient] should have been in doctors' hands not in bureaucrats and politicians hands which is what that legislation was,' Favero said.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Nauru, Metals Company revise deep sea mining agreement
Nauru President David Adeang at the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Meeting in Nuku'alofa, Tonga. 25 August 2024 Photo: RNZ Pacific / Lydia Lewis Nauru has revised its commercial agreement with Canadian mining group The Metals Company for deep sea mining in international waters. The updated "sponsorship agreement" was announced in a press release from The Metals Company. It comes at a time of increasing uncertainty in the deep sea mining industry with both the US and International Seabed Authority (ISA) respectively stating each offers a licencing pathway to mine the seabed in international waters. Nauru president David Adeang said in the press release that The Metals Company has been a "trusted and respectful" partner to Nauru. "We have worked to establish a responsible pathway for deep sea mineral development, one that can serve for a model for other developing states." The area of international waters currently under the spotlight is the Clarion Clipperton Zone - a vast area of the Pacific Ocean that sits between Hawai'i, Kiribati and Mexico, and spans 4.5 million square kilometres. The zone is of high commercial interest because it has an abundance of polymetallic nodules that contain valuable metals like cobalt, nickel, manganese and copper, which are used to make products such as smartphones and electric batteries. The minerals are also used in weapons manufacturing. Nauru has special rights in the Clarion Clipperton Zone through the ISA, which under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has jurisdiction over it. Since 2011, Nauru has partnered with The Metals Company to explore its area of the zone for minerals through that framework. At the same time, the ISA - which counts all Pacific nations among its 169-strong membership - has been developing a commercial mining code. The process, which began in 2014 and is ongoing, has been criticised by The Metals Company as effectively blocking it and Nauru's commercial mining interests. The company has also praised the US deepsea mining licencing pathway , which was effectively reactivated through an executive order President Donald Trump issued in April. That legislation, the Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act, states the US can grant mining permits in international waters. At face value, it offers an alternative licencing route to commercial seabed activity in the high seas to the ISA. However, any cross-over between jurisdictions and authorities remains untested. The Metals Company Photo: Facebook / The Metals Company In the press release from The Metals Company, its chief executive Gerard Barron made direct reference to Trump's order, titled 'Unleashing America's Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources'. He said he was heartened by its call "for a joint assessment of a seabed benefit-sharing mechanism" and was certain that "big ocean states" like Nauru would continue to play a leading role in the deep sea mining industry. The company confirmed two weeks ago it would not be applying for a commercial mining license through the ISA in June. Instead, it has said it would apply exclusively apply through US regulations. No mention of that decision was made in the press release. "We remain unshakeable in our commitment to developing this project responsibly, transparently, and in a way that delivers real benefits to Nauruans," Barron said. ISA secretary general Leticia Carvalho has previously said the US had no authority to offer permits in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. "Circumventing the regulatory authority of the ISA not only breaches international law, but also erodes trust," Carvalho said. In addition to Nauru, Tonga, Kiribati and the Cook Islands have special rights in the Clarion Clipperton Zone through the ISA.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Nauru, Metals Company announce revised deep sea mining agreement
Nauru President David Adeang at the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Meeting in Nuku'alofa, Tonga. 25 August 2024 Photo: RNZ Pacific / Lydia Lewis Nauru has announced an update to its commercial agreement with Canadian mining group The Metals Company for deep sea mining in international waters. The updated "sponsorship agreement" was announced in a press release from The Metals Company. It comes at a time of increasing uncertainty in the deep sea mining industry with both the US and International Seabed Authority (ISA) respectively stating each offers a licencing pathway to mine the seabed in international waters. Nauru president David Adeang said in the press release that The Metals Company has been a "trusted and respectful" partner to Nauru. "We have worked to establish a responsible pathway for deep sea mineral development, one that can serve for a model for other developing states." The area of international waters currently under the spotlight is the Clarion Clipperton Zone - a vast area of the Pacific Ocean that sits between Hawai'i, Kiribati and Mexico, and spans 4.5 million square kilometres. The zone is of high commercial interest because it has an abundance of polymetallic nodules that contain valuable metals like cobalt, nickel, manganese and copper, which are used to make products such as smartphones and electric batteries. The minerals are also used in weapons manufacturing. Nauru has special rights in the Clarion Clipperton Zone through the ISA, which under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has jurisdiction over it. Since 2011, Nauru has partnered with The Metals Company to explore its area of the zone for minerals through that framework. At the same time, the ISA - which counts all Pacific nations among its 169-strong membership - has been developing a commercial mining code. The process, which began in 2014 and is ongoing, has been criticised by The Metals Company as effectively blocking it and Nauru's commercial mining interests. The company has also praised the US deepsea mining licencing pathway , which was effectively reactivated through an executive order President Donald Trump issued in April. That legislation, the Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act, states the US can grant mining permits in international waters. At face value, it offers an alternative licencing route to commercial seabed activity in the high seas to the ISA. However, any cross-over between jurisdictions and authorities remains untested. The Metals Company Photo: Facebook / The Metals Company In the press release from The Metals Company, its chief executive Gerard Barron made direct reference to Trump's order, titled 'Unleashing America's Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources'. He said he was heartened by its call "for a joint assessment of a seabed benefit-sharing mechanism" and was certain that "big ocean states" like Nauru would continue to play a leading role in the deep sea mining industry. The company confirmed two weeks ago it would not be applying for a commercial mining license through the ISA in June. Instead, it has said it would apply exclusively apply through US regulations. No mention of that decision was made in the press release. "We remain unshakeable in our commitment to developing this project responsibly, transparently, and in a way that delivers real benefits to Nauruans," Barron said. ISA secretary general Leticia Carvalho has previously said the US had no authority to offer permits in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. "Circumventing the regulatory authority of the ISA not only breaches international law, but also erodes trust," Carvalho said. In addition to Nauru, Tonga, Kiribati and the Cook Islands have special rights in the Clarion Clipperton Zone through the ISA.
RNZ News
22-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Deep sea mining frontrunner set to sidestep UN oversight , pivots to US route
The Metals Company Photo: Facebook / The Metals Company Deep sea mining frontrunner The Metals Company (TMC) has confirmed it will not apply for a mining license through the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in June, instead it will exclusively apply through US regulations . It is unclear what this means for both Nauru and Tonga, who have sponsored TMC at the ISA. However, the firm's chief executive Gerard Barron said the company would still renew its subsidiary Nauru Ocean Resources' (NORI) exploration licence. "We will be renewing that because NORI is in full compliance. There is no legal basis on which that licence cannot be renewed," he said during the company's first quarter update of 2025. TMC's mining application through US regulations was made possible through an executive order last month by President Donald Trump. The company's application covers 25,000 square kilometres in the Clarion Clipperton Zone - located in the international waters in north Pacific between Hawai'i and Mexico. Barron said the block was "not claimed by any other sovereign". "While there is an ability to lay claim over grounds currently under license through the ISA by other countries we made a deliberate plan not to do that." Barron added that Tonga and Nauru are supportive of TMC's moves. However, China's Ambassador to Nauru Lu Jin said that the US trampled on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) by creating a mechanism to allow for deep sea mining outside of the ISA. During a meeting with Nauru's President David Adeang , Lu said China and Nauru should work together to safeguard Nauru's interests in deep sea mining, adding China would push the ISA to accelerate mining progress. Greenpeace activists protesting around MV Coco, a specialised vessel collecting data for The Metals Company in November 2023. Photo: Supplied / Greenpeace / Martin Katz Deep Sea Conservation Coalition's Phil McCabe said China's deep sea mining interest in the region is growing. "This is the third Pacific Island country that China has spoken to on deep sea mining and looking for greater cooperation with, following the Cook Islands sealed deal on cooperation and discussions with Kiribati as well." ISA secretary general Leticia Carvalho claimed the US had no authority to offer permits in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. "Circumventing the regulatory authority of the ISA not only breaches international law, but also erodes trust," Carvalho said. Carvalho said TMC had been "very pushy" on trying to get mining rules approved at the ISA, so the company pivoting to the US was "not completely unforeseen". "The new administration of the US aligns with a number of issues regarding employment generation, security, also regarding the fact that they're somehow behind China in possession of the minerals." Juressa Lee with Greenpeace Aotearoa said the Trump administration is acting outside of multilateralism. "This sets a very, very low bar and a terrible precedent for other countries, [ISA] member states and wannabe deep sea mining companies to follow." Despite criticism, TMC's share price has quadrupled since the beginning of this year. Barron believes the price was held back by a lack of a clear regulatory pathway, which he sees is now secure through the US regulations. "We believe this US-based pathway offers the greatest probability of receiving a commercial permit in a timely, transparent and legally robust manner, giving us clear line of sight to responsible commercial operations." Barron expects the commercial recovery permit to be deemed complaint prior to the end of June, TMC will then go through an environmental review if successful.
Reuters
20-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Australia to stay tariff-free for Pacific Islands struggling with aid cuts, says foreign minister
SYDNEY, May 20 (Reuters) - Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong has pledged to keep tariff-free access for Pacific Island goods, after Fiji was hit by a 32% U.S. tariff, in a speech positioning Australia as a reliable partner to the region amid global aid cuts. Australia is the region's largest aid donor and "a partner the Pacific can count on", Wong said in Suva on Tuesday, her first international speech since the centre-left Labor government was re-elected in May. "Forty years of tariff-free access into Australia has helped contribute to the prosperity of the Pacific. And I can promise you today, that will not change," she said at the headquarters of the Pacific Islands Forum, the region's diplomatic bloc. Fiji's main exports include bottled water, sugar and fish. A transport hub for the aid-reliant region that sits strategically between the United States and Asia, Fiji was previously courted by Washington and Beijing for security ties and infrastructure assistance. Vanuatu was hit with a 22% U.S. tariff, while Nauru, population 11,000, drew a 30% tariff. Fiji's prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, had raised concerns about the U.S. aid freeze in Washington in February. "The Pacific is facing growing challenges, from climate change, cuts to global aid and rules under strain," said Wong, who will also travel to Vanuatu and Tonga this week. Australia has pledged a record A$2.1 billion ($1.35 billion) in development assistance to the Pacific Islands, she said. "Recognising the impact of global aid cuts, we have reprioritised our development assistance to dedicate 75 cents of every Australian development dollar to support our region," she said. China is the second-largest donor country to the Pacific Islands, and has sought increasing policing ties in the region, which Australia sees as a security threat. ($1 = 1.5506 Australian dollars)
