NZ: Australia’s responsibility to block on-travel

New Zealand’s immigration minister says Australia can block Manus Island and Nauru detainees his country takes in from travelling across the Tasman.

SBS News – 22 May 2018

Australia is free to stop any detained asylum seekers relocated to New Zealand from hopping over the Tasman, New Zealand’s immigration minister says.

Australian Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo had on Monday left the door slightly ajar to one day accepting New Zealand’s long-standing offer to take in 150 detainees from Manus Island and Nauru as refugees – but with a caveat.

“Unless and until that question of on-travel can be addressed and resolved … once we’re in a position to do that, it might be more possible to take up that offer,” he told a Senate committee in Canberra.

On Tuesday, New Zealand Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said Australia was free to keep the asylum seekers from travelling across the ditch if it wanted.

Ultimately, responsibility for who can come into any sovereign nation is the responsibility of that nation,” he told reporters in Wellington.

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