A former Nauru government media advisor decries 'dictatorship'
A former media adviser to the Nauru Government, Rod Henshaw, says his deportation on Wednesday shows the Government is effectively a dictatorship.
Transcript
A former media adviser to the Nauru Government, Rod Henshaw, says his deportation on Wednesday shows the Government is effectively a dictatorship.
Rod Henshaw was put on a plane hours after Parliament passed an immigration law amendment, allowing the Justice Minister, David Adeang, to deport him.
He follows the resident magistrate Peter Law who was deported last week, while expatriates including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court have had their visas revoked.
Rod Henshaw spoke to Alex Perrottet.
HENSHAW: I had half an hour to pack and to get to the airport. I've got to say that the police were fine, they were doing their job. There were no dramas with that, it was totally dignified. They were just doing their job, under direction obviously. And then I was shunted out about three hours later.
PERROTTET: On a bit more of a personal note, the police did allow you some time to visit the grave of your recently-deceased wife before you left.
HENSHAW: Yes, very very grateful. It was just something that I felt I needed to do. As I said the police were great and I knew two of them personally and I don't think they liked what they were doing. I just said to Dan, the guy in charge, mate do you mind if I just pull by my wife's grave. And he said no that's fine, and did.
PERROTTET: If we can just go back to the genesis of this, could you give us a bit more background of what you know?
HENSHAW: Yeah sure, I think the bottom line is if they gave us a reason for why they were shoving us out, we'd feel better but at this point there's no reason, there's no explanation, there's no justification mind you. But talking of the origins, when they sent me my first letter two weeks ago, ordering me out, no reason again, obviously we went to court to seek an injunction. The law under which, that's the Immigration Act of 1999, that was amended late last year, was so flawed you could drive a semi-trailer through the holes. It was ridiculous. It didn't even address the issues it was supposed to address. It deleted sections, and referred to another section that wasn't even included. That's how stupid it was and how unlawful it was. So on that basis the resident magistrate at that time, Peter Law, had no choice other than to grant an injunction. That injunction was basically ignored yesterday. The law that went through on Tuesday night negated all of that. And so in other words it created a dictatorship and it just created an authoritarian government with one man leading it and that's not even the President. It's the minister for justice. One day he'll be brought to account.
PERROTTET: What else what involved in that bill? What was the motivation of getting it through?
HENSHAW: The motivation for getting it through was to get rid of anybody the minister for justice doesn't like. He doesn't like me because I used to work for a previous government. Probably at some time in my former incarnation I was writing press releases which he possibly didn't like. But that's just the way it is at the moment in Nauru, which is very unfortunate because Nauru is a beautiful country, lovely people. The amount of support that I've received from Nauruans, everyday Nauruans and from quite a few people in the Government even, has been quite humbling and quite overwhelming, so I'm not decrying Nauru for one second. I'd love to go back there, I think I will go back there one day when things change. I am pretty sure I will. I need to get back there, they're personal reasons obviously. But at the end of the day this is about one person who has set himself up as an authoritarian figure, as a dictator, and he is going through those motions.
To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following:
See terms of use.