A controversial offshore migrant detention centre on Christmas Island is to reopen, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Wednesday, as he doubled down on hardline policies after a historic legislative defeat. Morrison approved the reopening of the remote facility - closed just months ago - claiming new laws just passed by parliament would increase the number of people trying to arrive in Australia illegally.
On Tuesday and Wednesday parliament rebuffed government warnings and adopted legislation opening the door for some of the 1,000 refugees detained in existing offshore centres on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island to travel to Australia for medical treatment if the transfers are requested by two or more doctors. It was the first time in decades that an Australian government has lost a vote on its own legislation in the House of Representatives.
Morrison brushed aside suggestions that the law would only apply to those already in detention and accused the opposition of trying to "weaken and compromise our borders". His government, he said, was adopting "100 percent" of a series of recommendations from the country's security services to further tighten efforts to prevent the arrival of migrants and asylum-seekers by sea.
He declined to specify what those classified measures were, other than to announce the reopening of the camp on Christmas Island, a remote Australian territory some 2,300 kilometres (1,400 miles) northwest of the western city of Perth. "If they don't come, it will be because of the work and the decisions we are now taking and the actions we are putting in place," Morrison said. "If they do come, you can thank the Labor Party and (opposition leader) Bill Shorten."