Criticism from residents and former detainees as PM visits Christmas Island

A guard at the North West Point Detention Centre on Christmas Island

A guard at the North West Point Detention Centre on Christmas Island. Source: AAP

There’s been an unhappy response to Scott Morrison’s visit to the Christmas Island Detention Centre, the first sitting Australian Prime Minister to do so. He was inspecting the immigration detention facility after the government’s announcement it would send sick asylum seekers from Nauru or Manus Island there for medical treatment, rather than mainland Australia.


After announcing plans to reopen the Christmas Island Detention Centre last month, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has visited the Indian Ocean territory to inspect its immigration facilities. 

He used the visit to detail plans to send any asylum seekers deemed "a risk", and who apply to receive medical treatment in Australia, to the high-security North West Point detention centre. 

The government says there are 57 male detainees identified as "a risk", including several accused of murder, inappropriate behaviour and alleged terrorism offences. 

There are about 850 other men remaining in offshore processing centres on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island. 

It's unclear if those people will be allowed to come to hospitals on mainland Australia under new medical evacuation legislation. 

The Christmas Island detention centre closed in October last year ((2018)) and the government has now budgeted 1.44 billion dollars over four years to re-open it. 

Mr Morrison says his decision responds to concerns that the new medical evacuation legislation will weaken Australia's border security.

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