Julia Gillard, the Australian Prime Minister has denied all claims regarding the closing of the Nauru asylum-seeker processing center. It is being said that the closing has led to more arrivals. According to the Prime Minister, Nauru is the key step for the Pacific solution put forth by the Howard government. This place should have been known as the Camp Detour. This is because 96% of the asylum seekers who have been sent to Nauru have ended up residing in either New Zealand or Australia.

However, according to Scott Morrison, the Immigration Spokesman for the Opposition, those involved in human trafficking have not yet been discouraged with the current record being 122 boats arriving Australia as of now. More so, the opposition is also demanding Nauru to be reopened for the offshore processing of asylum seekers.

This latest debate came about after a report came about a document being acquired under the legislation of Freedom of Information. This document mentions that the Labor was warned in February 2008 itself about the outcome of the closing down of Nauru leading to an increase in human smuggling.

However, PM Gillard refused to comment but said that a big assumption was being made by the opposition based on a single document as evidence. This document is not a detailed analysis of human trafficking and its causes or on Nauru. Instead, it is on operations pertaining to detention on Christmas Island.

She also said that the advice given to Labor after the 2007 elections was that human traffickers are still active in the entire region. Those seeking such services mainly catered to people from Sri Lanka and Iraq.

On the other hand, as per Mr. Morrison, this document is a warning which makes it very clear that closing Nauru would simply mean a trigger for human smugglers. This document is supposed to have specified a set of strategies for risk management which had led to the hindrance of boat arrivals in the last few years.