Lawyers for baby ‘Asha’ who were demanding immediate access to their client after she was today discharged from a Brisbane hospital have now spoken to the family.
The lawyers were not told where she was moved to or how to contact her family, but were able to speak with child's mother early this evening.
“It’s been an emotional few days for the family. They are relieved and thankful that they aren’t languishing on Nauru or locked up in a detention centre," Daniel Webb, Director of Legal Advocacy, Human Rights Law Centre said in a statement.
“It’s not ok that the government has prevented us from speaking with our client for the last three days. She had been asking to speak with us and we had been asking to speak with her but Border Force was blocking access," he said.
Immigration minister Peter Dutton has said the child is in community detention and will at some stage be returned offshore to Nauru.
A 10-day stand-off between doctors and immigration officials, and protests outside the hospital to stop the baby being sent offshore, has attracted international media attention.
Protesters were outside the hospital when baby Asha was snuck out the back door this morning.
Queensland Health tweeted: “We can confirm that baby Asha has been discharged from #LadyCilento hospital. Maybe if she visits again it will be as a doctor or nurse.”
The mother and child join 83 other people currently in community detention in Australia and are among at least 269 awaiting removal offshore.
Australian-born ‘Asha’, the poster child of the Let Them Stay campaign, is now somewhere under immigration guard while Mr Dutton considers her future.
“When legal matters have resolved and the medical matters have resolved, people will return to Nauru, that's the case for this family,” Mr Dutton said.
‘Asha’ was flown to Brisbane to treat accidental burn wounds caused by boiling water at the detention centre in Nauru.
Doctors at the hospital had refused to discharge the infant into immigration department hands until "until a suitable home environment" was found.
“The reality is Nauru hurts children, it harms family and people continue to suffer there. It's time to close the camps, let them stay in Australia,” said Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
‘Asha’ has spent all her life in detention. Her mother will receive 72-hours notice before they are sent back to Nauru.
Protesters took the Let Them Stay campaign to federal parliament, staging a peaceful sit-in in the Great Hall as campaigners claimed community detention was a shift in government policy.
In Parliament, Mr Dutton rejected the claim.
“Let me be very clear to these people. We will not be held to ransom, we will not be blackmailed into changing this policy because this policy has resulted in lives being saved and we are not going to retreat on what has been a successful policy,” he said.
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“I'm not going to preside over a situation where we have people self harming to come to hospitals in this country because they believe that is the route out into the Australian community for Australian citizenship.”
His statement provoked outrage and a censure motion from independent MP Andrew Wilkie and the Greens.
“Peter Dutton outrageously and offensively implied babies and children may end up in hospital by deliberately ‘self-harming’ to gain citizenship,” Greens MP Adam Bandt said.
“This is a disgusting and vile statement worthy of censure.”
Mr Dutton also again ruled out the New Zealand prime minister John Key’s long-standing offer to take 150 of around 260 facing removal offshore from Australia.
“The way in which the deal was structured, it meant that people could go to New Zealand as a back door option to come to Australia, and that’s why it was a failed proposal under Julia Gillard,” he said.
“Mr Key basically provided people smugglers with a back door option to get into Australia and we're not going to abide that.”
Any asylum seekers settled in New Zealand would need to complete their five-year residence before applying for citizenship in that country, and only then could apply to relocate to Australia.
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