Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea Photograph: SUPPLIED/PR IMAGE
The government has transferred a significant number of children and families, as well as some adult males, from detention facilities at Manus Island in a move understood to affect the majority of family members on the facility.
Guardian Australia has learned that the transfer involves 70 detainees, including around 40 family members to Christmas Island.
A spokesman for the department of immigration said that all those transferred were still subject to the regional processing policy, but could be housed at facilities throughout Australia, rather than offshore.
Asked for the reasons of transfer, the spokesman said he could not comment for "operational reasons". He also confirmed all those transferred were still subject to the government's "no advantage" policy.
The transfer had initially been presented by refugee activists as a signal that the government was ending detention of families and children on the island. But a spokesman for the immigration minister's office told Guardian Australia that this was not the case.
"There is no shift in government policy, families remain liable for transfer for regional processing," he said.
Sophie Peer campaign director for ChilOut, an asylum seeker advocacy group said: "Removing children from detention on Manus Island is a terrific first step. This cannot simply be one concession, it must be part of a policy shift, a change leading to the protection of children,"
The detention facilities at Manus Island have been heavily criticised, particularly for its lack of provision for children.
In April ABC's Four Corners spoke to Dr John Vallentine, a doctor who had worked on the island's detention facilities last year. He told the programme that the facility was "too remote" to adequately cater to the needs of child patients and had "very little in the way of paediatric equipment".
Shadow immigration minister Scott Morrisson reiterated his belief that children and families should not be held on the island. "Families should never have been put on Manus in those conditions," he told Sky News on Friday, saying that the Coalition had already voiced their concerns to government.
He said the issue was that there were no "family facilities" at any offshore processing centres.
"That means there is now a dangerous incentive for children and families to get on boats," he said.
Peer added this significant transfer was a sign that offshore detention of children in particular was not working: "The debacle of this rushed Manus Island idea has resulted in billions of wasted taxpayer dollars, no processing of asylum claims, certain harm to children and has shown a complete lack of transparency not in line with the sovereign wishes of the Papua New Guinean government. We call for a complete dismantling of this approach."
TheGuardian
