Concerns raised baby Asha may be deported

An asylum-seeker baby being treated in a Queensland hospital will be released into community detention and not immediately transferred to Nauru, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says.

The Australian government and its policy of sending asylum seekers who attempt to reach the country by boat to camps on Nauru or on Manus island in Papua New Guinea.

It has many people talking about the plight of refugees, and more significantly, refugee children like little Asha.

Australian medical Association president Professor Brian Owler said the government was close to “crossing” a line in its treatment of the infant.

“You have to ask why the Department of Immigration and Border Protection is pulling apart the moral fabric of this country”.

The High Court this month rejected a legal test case that challenged Australia’s right to deport 267 refugee children and their families who had been brought to Australia from Nauru for medical treatment.

Ms Blucher said the hospital had been hoping for a community detention option because it was a safe environment for a child.

A Lady Cilento spokesman said it was not aware of plans to move the baby.

She said she has been speaking to Asha’s mum Abhaya on the phone and was told the family had been warned it would be taken away from the hospital by “plain-clothed” guards. Beyond that, they have not commented on her future.

He has also called for the immediate establishment of a national body of clinical experts, independent of government, to investigate and report back to parliament on the health and welfare of asylum-seekers, saying the Abbott government had disbanded an advisory body of independent doctors fulfilling this role in December 2013.

The 12-month-old was sent from Nauru to Lady Cilento for treatment on burns, and has since recovered from her injuries.

She is well enough to be released from hospital, but Lady Cilento medical staff will not let her return to immigration detention on Nauru.

“They would continue to be earmarked for offshore detention as the government sees it”, she said.

Sources close to the family are hoping rumours Asha and her parents will be released into community detention today will prove true. “Bill Shorten did call Prime Minister Turnbull [on Saturday night] to seek reassurance that this would not happen”, he said.