UN, human rights groups and refugee groups demand solutions following Nauru data leak – as it happened

Liberal MP Craig Kelly tosses off royal commission calls: ‘We can’t go around having a royal commission every time there’s an issue or a media release’

Updated

Children protest in the Nauru detention centre. The Nauru files set out as never before the assaults, sexual abuse, self-harm attempts, child abuse and living conditions endured by asylum seekers held by the Australian government. Photograph: Supplied

Helen Davidson

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7.18am BST 07:18

And just finally, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, says it is “gravely concerned by the reports”.

“Although UNHCR is not able to verify the individual incidents raised by the reports, the documents released are broadly consistent with UNHCR’s longstanding and continuing concerns regarding mental health, as well as overall conditions for refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru,” the organisation said in a statement.

UNHCR has observed and reported a progressive deterioration in the situation of refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru through its regular visits since 2012.

“Solutions are now urgently needed.”

I’ll be closing this live blog shortly. Stay tuned to the Guardian website overnight and for the coming days as we continue coverage of the Nauru files and the fallout.

Updated at 7.19am BST

7.11am BST 07:11

Here is the full statement from the former Save the Children staff.

6.58am BST 06:58

ChilOut, an advocacy group campaigning against children in immigration detention, has also expressed concern for the 49 children believed to still be on Nauru in immigration detention.

“These most vulnerable children have been placed in singularly dangerous and shameful environments in Nauru. Australia needs to stop this systematic and institutionalised abuse of children,” said ChilOut’s campaign coordinator and human rights lawyer, Niru Palanivel.

“Report after report has revealed shocking conditions; most are ignored, or paid lip service. But this time something must be done.”

6.40am BST 06:40

The Australian government must legislate a mandated time limit on child detention, allowing children to be released into an alternative to detention, the End Child Detention Coalition has said.

“We welcomed the Coalition government’s commitment in May of this year to release all children from onshore detention centres, but now it is time to release children from detention on Nauru as well,” said the chair of the group, Leeanne Torpey.

The organisation, which comprises secular and church groups and NGOs, said the average time people spend in onshore and offshore detention hit a record high this year.

“Even short periods of detention are incredibly harmful for children, with extremely high rates of depression and unaddressed trauma exacerbated by detention,” said Torpey.

“These revelations have serious consequences for the 49 children in detention in Nauru. There is an urgent need for transparency and independent oversight of places of immigration detention. Children should never be detained.”

Updated at 6.47am BST

6.27am BST 06:27

Files are just the tip of the iceberg - former staff

An astonishing 26 former Save the Children staff, many of whom wrote a number of the incident reports revealed in the Nauru files today, have spoken out in response to the leak.

The former staff, including case managers, social workers, child protection specialists, teachers, and adult, child and youth recreation workers released a joint statement a short time ago and called for the centre’s closure.

‘’It appears from looking through the published database that nowhere near the full extent of the incident reports written on a day to day basis have been released,” said former teacher, Jane Willey.

“What you are seeing here is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Natasha Blucher, a former Save the Children senior caseworker, said none of the signatories were behind the leak or aware of where it came from, but that its release allowed them to speak out.

‘’As the authors of many of these reports, we encourage you to understand that despite the clinical and objective language we have used in our professional roles – these reports document intense suffering experienced by families, children and individuals and are irrefutable evidence of the harm caused by offshore detention.”

5.54am BST 05:54

Liberal MP Craig Kelly dismissed royal commission calls

We can’t go around having a royal commission every time there’s a media release, the Liberal MP Craig Kelly has told Sky News in response to the Nauru files.

Asked why the federal government had such a powerful reaction to the Don Dale report but hasn’t yet to the Nauru files report, Kelly told host Peter van Onselen the latter had only come out in the past 24 hours.

“It was within 12 hours we had a royal commission into Don Dale,” replied Van Onselen.

“Well obviously it should be looked at, at what we can do to improve the reins of those detention centres. I don’t think we can go around every time there’s an issue, or a media release, having a royal commission,” said Kelly.

“The Don Dale issue was quite significant, very graphic footage, it concerned a lot of people. I think the prime minister did the right thing there.”

Van Onselen: “Isn’t that the issue though? One carried – as you put it and you’re absolutely right – really graphic footage, whereas the other one is reports, but the cameras can’t get in there. There isn’t any photographic evidence. Were there perhaps it would be more likely to elicit the kind of emotive response that leads to the reaction like the PM gave on Don Dale.”

Kelly: “That’s very true. The reality is a royal commission is not a fix-all. It’s one solution to help get to the bottom. The issues on Nauru, I think they’re things we can still look at and get to the bottom of, addressing those problems, not necessarily needing a royal commission.”

— Rashida Yosufzai (@Rashidajourno) August 10, 2016
Liberal Craig Kelly, asked about Nauru reports, says we can't go around launching a RC every time there's a report into abuse #auspol

Updated at 6.06am BST

5.16am BST 05:16

Comcare must prosecute over abuses, says legal group

The Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) has called for the federal workplace regulator to prosecute for offences under the Work Health and Safety act.

“It is important to note that this Act applies to Australian activities on Nauru, and it clearly states that workplaces must not only be safe for employees and contractors but any person who is in that workplace. This of course means detainees as well,” said ALA spokesperson and barrister Greg Barns.

Citing a report by the ALA this year on the liability of the immigration and border protection department and their contractors, Barnes said the act was clearly applicable.

“It is not good enough to argue that this is Nauru’s responsibility,” Barns said.

“The Federal Court has found that the government owes a duty of care to refugees on Nauru. Our report also outlined how the WHS Act applies in the offshore immigration regime.”

“Only last month a Royal Commission was instituted to investigate abuse of children in juvenile detention in the Northern Territory after images of abuse in Don Dale were aired.

Asylum seekers and refugees deserve a similar level of scrutiny.”

5.02am BST 05:02

The “appalling level of trauma and abuse” revealed in the Nauru files are an indictment on the Australian government, Oxfam has said.

“Australia has the capacity to accept more refugees and asylum seekers – vulnerable people who should not be forced to live in traumatic conditions in offshore centres,” said Oxfam Australia’s director of public engagement, Pam Anders.

“Offshore detention comes at a great cost to all involved. The cost to detainees in terms of mental health, wellbeing and psychological harm is immeasurable. There is also a significant financial cost, which is difficult to accurately estimate but is certainly over $1bn.”

Updated at 5.11am BST

4.44am BST 04:44

AMA calls for independent health assessment

The head of Australia’s peak medical body, the Australian Medical Association, has called for an independent investigation and assessment of the health and living conditions of every asylum seeker living in offshore detention.

In a statement the AMA said it wants the government to establish a transparent, national statutory body of clinical experts, independent of government, which has the power to investigate and report to the parliament.

“These disturbing reports echo long-held concerns by the AMA about the lack of proper physical and mental health care being provided to people in immigration detention,” the AMA president, Dr Michael Gannon, said.

“The reports detail high levels of trauma and mental illness, especially in children being detained on Nauru. Having children in detention is harmful - it causes physical, psychological, emotional, and developmental harms.

“The AMA has called for all children to be removed from detention facilities and placed into the community, where they can be properly cared for.”

Gannon said the AMA receives regular calls and reports from asylum seekers and their advocates about failings in medical care, and said doctors must be able to speak out on these issues without fear of retribution or prosecution.

“We need greater transparency and we need more clinical input to policies regarding the health of asylum seekers,” he said.

Updated at 4.54am BST

4.35am BST 04:35

The Nauru files are the final devastating proof that we urgently need new asylum seeker policy, the Refugee Council of Australia has said.

“Reading the extent and detail of the suffering is sickening: the child abuse, sexual abuse, threats, self-harm and psychological damage Australia’s offshore detention system is having on a daily basis,” said Tim O’Connor, the organisation’s acting chief executive.

“It is not clear that any of these reports have been investigated and there must be justice for those that have raised these extremely troubling claims.”

O’Connor also called for an immediate inquiry, and the transfer of detainees to Australia.

“As the government has done in the Northern Territory when serious abuse has been brought to its attention, there needs to be an independent investigation into all the claims in the Narau files.

“With the success of the government in stopping the arrival of people seeking asylum by boat, there can be no further excuse not to bring these people to immediate safety.”

Updated at 4.41am BST

4.24am BST 04:24

Ben Doherty

“There is undeniable, cumulative evidence that suggests that asylum seeker and refugee children are not safe under existing arrangements on Nauru. The Australian government must take immediate action for children and their families to prevent further harm,” Nicole Breeze, director of policy and advocacy with Unicef Australia, said.

Australia should also do more to assist with resettling refugees from across the region and around the world, Breeze said.

“Australia has unfairly shifted its responsibilities for asylum seekers and refugees to our Pacific neighbours for far too long. We must do our fair share to respond to the world’s worst refugee crisis. Unicef Australia also calls on the government to increase Australia’s humanitarian intake program to 30,000 places.”

Unicef and the Nauruan government have jointly released a report reviewing child protection on Nauru.

While the report is focused on the safety and rights of Nauruan children, the Naurun government and Unicef said: “There is also a need for a considered and appropriate set of measures to prevent and respond to allegations and incidences of abuse of children in the regional processing centre and of children living in Nauruan communities as refugees or unaccompanied minors.”

The report found that the four major protection concerns were physical abuse of children, neglect, witnessing family violence, and sexual abuse. Nauruan police said the three most common issues involving children they encountered were neglect, sexual assault, and incest.

Nauru’s minister for home affairs, Charmaine Scotty, said Nauru had worked hard to reform and improve child protection.

“The republic of Nauru recognises the need for legal and policy reform,” she said. “It acknowledges that some laws date back to colonial times and urgently require revision based on changing circumstances and conditions, including the need to accommodate human rights concessions.”

Scotty said the the review of child protection in Nauru had assisted the government to better address the care and protection needs of children by developing a national child protection policy.

Breeze said it was commendable that the Nauruan government had taken positive steps to improve protections for all children on the island.

“However, the existing body of evidence suggests that it is very difficult to keep children and families with such complex needs safe on Nauru. Nauru and Manus Island were never meant to be medium- to long-term resettlement options.”

Updated at 4.47am BST

4.16am BST 04:16

Shorten: this government is addicted to secrecy

The Coalition government is “addicted to secrecy”, sadi the opposition leader, Bill Shorten. Asked a short time ago if he supported calls for a royal commission, Shorten replied:

“The first thing we need to do is for the Turnbull government to carry out Labor’s policy of putting in place an independent children’s advocate. It is really, really disturbing that there have been all of these files – not that they have been released, but what they contain – and if we are going to have offshore detention, it has to be conducted in the safest possible way.

“Just because people are indirectly in the care of Australia doesn’t absolve Australia of ensuring that people are safe. And so these files, I think, again point to the immediate need for an independent children’s advocate.

“This government is addicted to secrecy. Transparency is the best way, I believe, to ensure that people in our care have been properly maintained and Australian standards are being upheld and not undermined in these centres.”

Updated at 4.43am BST

4.06am BST 04:06

Peak bodies call for royal commission

The peak body for aid and international development and the peak body for social services in Australia have joined calls for a royal commission to examine the treatment of children on Nauru.

The Australian Council for International Development (Acfid) and the Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss) say the current royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse should immediately examine incidents and allegations raised in the Nauru files.

“We have a royal commission tasked with investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse. In the face of the extraordinary evidence of such abuse and harassment of children in immigration detention in Nauru there must be an investigation into whether this is an explicit breach of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s duty of care,” said Acfid chief executive, Marc Purcell.

Chief executive of Acoss, Cassandra Goldie, said: “The royal commission already has the power to investigate the treatment of children in these centres. With more than 1,000 documented cases of child abuse, including many involving sexual abuse, it is clear the commission must act.”

They also called for the immediate transfer of asylum seeker children and their families on Nauru to Australia.

Updated at 4.56am BST

3.59am BST 03:59

Calla Wahlquist

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has just addressed the media in Melbourne and said the Turnbull government cannot claim ignorance of the “institutionalised child abuse, taxpayer-funded sexual assault of women” on Nauru.

Hanson-Young wrote to the then immigration minister, Scott Morrison, in 2014 alleging widespread sexual assault on women and children in Nauru, and said the incident reports published by Guardian Australia today showed those reports were correct.

“This is not new information to Peter Dutton. It’s not new information for Scott Morrison, and I don’t believe it’s new information to Malcolm Turnbull,” she said. “The sad truth of the matter is that the government knowingly turned a blind eye as collateral damage for their stop the boats policy.

“And if you want to be honest about it this government’s policy for stopping the boats is to stop the boats through child abuse. It’s obscene, it’s inhumane, and it’s beneath anything that this country should stand for.”

Hanson-Young said Turnbull’s comment this morning that the incidents were a matter for the Nauruan government were disingenuous when the camps were funded, governed, and staffed by Australians.

“Ministers have known that children have been abused at the hands of people paid for by the Australian taxpayer,” she said. “Ministers have known that. And they have done nothing to protect those children.”

She said a royal commission into the camps was “long overdue” and that detainees, particularly women and children, should be brought to Australia as a “matter of urgency”.

She compared the Australian government’s efforts to stem information from Nauru and Manus Island to the Catholic church’s silencing of sexual abuse victims, which prompted the current royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

“The cover-up is astounding in regards to all of these incidents,” she said. “The gagging of staff, the gagging of independent advocates, the locking out of media from these detention centres has allowed abuse to fester.”

From the experience of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, she said: “We know that when we cover this stuff up, when we intimidate people from speaking up, abuse festers and children suffer.”

Updated at 5.57am BST