Resettlement from Nauru: A cautionary tale

Professor Jane McAdam spoke at the Australian Institute of International Affairs on the 1 September about Nauru and refugees. 

Most Australians know Nauru as the tiny Pacific island country to which we send asylum seekers who have come by boat.  Far less well known is the fact that 50 years ago, the Australian government proposed to resettle the whole population of Nauru on Curtis Island off the Queensland coast. Extensive phosphate mining by Australia, the UK and New Zealand had rendered Nauru barely fit for human habitation, and with the exorbitant cost of rehabilitating the land, relocation was considered to be the only option.  But the Nauruans refused to go: they did not want to be assimilated into Australia and lose their unique identity or sovereignty.  This episode adds further complexity to the fraught Australian–Nauruan relationship, and an incongruous historical twist to Nauru’s resettlement of Australia’s refugees today.  It also provides a cautionary tale for perennial discussions about the future relocation of Pacific island communities in the face of climate change.