The Wire

The government’s own human rights body has warned against the plan to send asylum seekers to Manus Island, cliaming it signals a return to the ‘Pacific solution’ of last decade. The governments of Australian and Papua New Guinea have signed off on a deal to send refugees who arrive in Australia by boat to the island to be processed. But the president of the Human Rights Commission, Catherine Branson QC, says she is disturbed by the isolation of the island, which sits off the north coast of Papua New Guinea’s mainland.