Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO, Jesuit Social Services board member, has called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to close Australia’s offshore detention facilities.

Addressing the Melaleuca Refugee Centre in Darwin on 29 September, Brennan said there is no longer an excuse for “maintaining the chamber of horrors” that is the Pacific solution at Nauru and Manus Island: “it is cruel, and it is unAustralian”.

Brennan has urged the government to:

• close the detention centres on Nauru and in Papua New Guinea
• abandon the Cambodian shipment plan
• negotiate a regional agreement for safe returns ensuring compliance with the non-refoulement obligation
• double the refugee and humanitarian component from 13,750 places to 27,000 places in the migration program

Read an excerpt of the speech published by Eureka Street.

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