4 September 2025
The Refugee Council of Australia is dismayed by the rushed passing of legislation that will pave the way for the removal of due process for people subject to forced removal from Australia to Nauru and potentially other countries.
This law removes basic legal protections that have been central to Australia’s democratic system. The new legislation – rushed through Parliament in one week – allows the Government to forcibly deport people without warning, regardless of whether they may face persecution or serious harm. There is no requirement to consider their health needs and no independent oversight of the process.
The law gives the Government the power to retrospectively validate visa decisions made based on wrong information. This means people could be deported based on decisions that were made under incorrect or outdated laws, without the chance for those decisions to be properly reviewed.
This Bill’s passage expands upon the suite of laws rushed through Parliament in November 2024. Those laws included creating provisions that would see people imprisoned for up to five years if they do not comply with removal directions, including expectations for to cooperate with governments they originally fled from. Refugee status can be revoked to enable removal, even in cases where there has been no change in the individual’s risk or situation.
People subject to this law include those with deep connections to Australia, including Australian citizen family members. Families will be permanently separated with no right to appeal or seek reunification. There is no protection in place to ensure families can stay together or maintain contact.
“Everything we know about what happens when people are sent indefinitely against their will to a small island like Nauru tells us that this will end badly for all involved,” RCOA chief executive officer Paul Power said. “We know that the people exiled indefinitely to Nauru will suffer greatly and, as their physical and mental health worsens, the international pressure on both Nauru and Australia will increase.
“Successive Australian governments have dragged our nation’s international reputation through the mud with 25 years of appalling treatment of foreign nationals who originally came to Australia to seek protection. How can we possibly think that this policy is going to be different?”
The Government has said this law will apply to a small group of people. However, the legislation is written broadly and could easily be used by future governments to detain or remove a much wider group of people, including recognised refugees and people still in the process of seeking protection.
The passage of this law follows the announcement of a new offshore agreement between Australia and Nauru. The Government has committed to paying $408 million upfront, plus $70 million per year for 30 years, to support ongoing offshore operations. Over the 30 years, this is expected to cost more than $2.5 billion. If all of the current cohort of 354 people are sent to Nauru, that works out to around $7 million per person to send people to indefinite relocation to a small island nation that they have no connection to.
The arrangement does not detail any independent monitoring for the people transferred, and there are no indications that steps have been taken to ameliorate the concerns about corruption and financial impropriety raised in 2023 regarding Australia’s previous multi-billion dollar arrangement with Nauru.
There are serious concerns about Nauru’s ability to meet the health needs of people transferred and to ensure their safety. The health system on Nauru has already proven inadequate, with recent reports of medical evacuations for treatable conditions, including dengue fever outbreaks in July 2025.
This law entrenches the worst aspects of Australia’s punitive offshore regime, at enormous human and financial cost. It overrides natural justice and removes the right to fairness. People subject to this legislation who have been convicted of offences have served their time and require support to rehabilitate and reintegrate into the community, just like Australian citizens who have interacted with the justice system.
