NZ opens doors to refugees on Nauru

By HELEN TUNNAH deputy political editor

New Zealand is again helping Australia with its refugee headache on Nauru by accepting 20 more asylum-seekers on humanitarian grounds.

All of the 20 have been rejected by Australia, including 18 who wanted to reunite with family members.

The other two, a Palestinian man and a Pakistani man, are not considered by Australia's Government to be refugees.

But the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has persuaded the New Zealand Government that the men have real reasons to fear for their lives.

Prime Minister Helen Clark and Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel were at pains yesterday not to criticise Australia when announcing that the 20 asylum-seekers, mainly children, would come here over the next two months. Helen Clark said the backgrounds of the two men had been thoroughly examined.

"By definition, anyone who is on Nauru, Australia has declined to accept. We're accepting them on compassionate grounds."

The other asylum-seekers include an Afghan man who is the uncle to a family reunified here last year, six women and 11 children.

The Iraqi women all have husbands who have been accepted as refugees in Australia.

But four years ago, Australia placed refugees on a visa which effectively blocks reuniting families until they have been there three years. The women's husbands are now expected to come to New Zealand to join their families.

The mainly Iraqi and Afghan people due here have been held on Nauru for more than two years, after being rescued by the freighter Tampa from their sinking boat.

The refugees' plight made headlines worldwide when Australian Prime Minister John Howard refused to let them in. New Zealand accepted 131 people then.

Mr Howard has continued with a hardline and electorally popular immigration policy, despite a foreign affairs committee there recommending last year that the detention camps on Nauru and other Pacific nations be shut down.

Australia pays Nauru to hold refugees, but conditions are considered stark.

The asylum-seekers would be counted as part of New Zealand's annual quota of 750 refugees.

Ms Dalziel said New Zealand believed refugees settled better if they were with their families.

The Prime Minister said: "In New Zealand when we accept someone as a refugee, as these men have been in Australia ... we then accept there's a flow-on consequence to immediate family who will be accepted as refugees."

Ms Dalziel said Australia had now agreed to reassess the status of some of the other people still on Nauru. But they have already rejected refugee claims on the grounds that people are fleeing regimes such as the Taleban in Afghanistan, arguing some Afghans could go home because the Taleban has lost power.

Helen Clark said "everyone", including the Australian Government, wanted to see an end to the Nauru solutions for refugees.