Aust aid to Nauru not under threat: Bishop

THE New Zealand government has suspended its funding for Nauru’s justice sector.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Murray McCully has withheld justice funding to the tiny Pacific nation, which hosts an Australian-funded detention centre, after several worrying incidents including the removal of senior members of the judiciary.

McCully said New Zealand could no longer support the island’s legal system, which has recently been used to suspend opposition leaders and enact laws clamping down on basic freedoms.

“Now I’ve reminded them of the obligation that they entered into with us at that time”, Mr McCully said.

The New Zealand government has expressed concern about the fate of Nauruan opposition MP Roland Kun, who was among three MPs suspended from Parliament for giving interviews with foreign media that criticised the government.

Mr McCully said the ball was in Nauru’s court, and he would continue to work with its government, with the aim of reaching a point where the funding can be resumed.

But Adeang said Kun was being investigated for his alleged role in instigating a riot at parliament house, describing it as “an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government through a criminal act”.

He says any suggestion the Nauru justice system is not independent or that the rule of law is not being upheld is completely wrong and offensive to the country’s judges.

“Clearly the Nauru government is refusing to acknowledge the deteriorating state of the justice sector”, he said, adding that “obviously they are going to have difficulties addressing the deficiencies in the justice sector if they’re not going to be acknowledging the issues at hand”.

One MP, Roland Kun, had his passport cancelled, preventing him from visiting his family in New Zealand.

“I did talk to Mr Adeang a couple of days ago, we haven’t managed to resolve things. For that reason we will leave things in a holding pattern until we can”.

Ms Bishop said she spoke to Nauru President Baron Waqa on Thursday and Australia’s development assistance, which supports health, education and public sector management, is not under review.

Australia’s offshore immigration detention system, which involves intercepting refugee boats and moving people to islands outside Australia for processing applications for protection visas, has earned the criticism of the United Nations because of near-nonexistent access for outside observers.

Senator Hanson-Young said that Nauru was “gripped in the throes of a systemic legal collapse”.

“We were the unfortunate ones here who were funding the very justice system that has been the subject of worldwide criticism”.

Speaking on behalf of the signatories, Mr Geddis said it was disappointing that matters were not resolved to allow the funding to continue.

“Where such thorough investigations might be seen by Nauru police to be unwelcome, so far as the Nauru government is concerned, it is unlikely that they will be undertaken”.