Nauru Detention Centre Will Cost A$2 Billion, Canberra Says

MELBOURNE, Jan 24 (Bernama) -- It would cost Australia more than A$2 billion to reopen and run the immigration detention centre on Nauru, as opposed to the cheaper option of the asylum seeker swap deal with Malaysia, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said Tuesday. He said he recently sent a team of officials to Nauru to assess the state of the infrastructure there. While the government maintains Nauru would not be effective in deterring asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat, it has offered to reopen the facility there to win opposition support for its people swap deal with Malaysia. " The advice to me is it would take at least three months to see a detention centre established on Nauru," Bowen said in Sydney Tuesday. Re-establishing the Nauru centre -- which would house up to 750 people -- would cost A$316 million, Bowen told reporters in Sydney. The cost of running it would be A$1.7 billion over the next four years, almost double an earlier estimate of A$970 million. Correspondence between Bowen and his opposition counterpart Scott Morrison reveal the depth of the stalemate, with the opposition insisting asylum seekers sent to Malaysia be protected by law. Trade Minister Craig Emerson said the failure of the talks was wholly the opposition's fault. "They want boats to keep coming because they think in boats, there are votes," he told Sky News on Tuesday. "More boats, more votes, more people dying at sea, more votes for the Coalition I (opposition)." Letters between the two parties, published in The Australian newspaper, show the Gillard government offered extra safeguards, including an asylum-seeker hotline and dedicated United Nations caseworkers, to appease human right concerns. -- BERNAMA