Tip for journos in #UK covering the proposal to send asylum seekers to other countries: the experience in #Australia has been that these off shore detention camps became secret. Although paid for by Australian taxpayers, access to the sites was almost impossible for reporters.
#Nauru, for example, charged an astronomical non-refundable journalist application fee & almost never granted the applications. Successive governments of #Australia then blamed the private companies running the centres and overseas governments for ill treatment of asylum seekers.
So Australian taxpayers paid millions and millions of dollars for asylum seekers to be held “off shore”, the government absolved itself for responsibility for the treatment of these detained people and there was virtually no independent accountability.
It’s pretty much stopped people smugglers sending boat loads of asylum seekers across very dangerous waters attempting to reach #Australia but there’s been a human rights abuse price to pay re the way off shore detention has been handled. Blocking journalists part of the problem.
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