Corruption allegations levelled at Nauru in Senate

The Greens have accused Anthony Albanese's government of turning a blind eye to corruption in Nauru while inking a fresh resettlement deal for unwanted non-citizens.

Greens senator David Shoebridge told a late-night session of the Senate that senior leaders of the Micronesian nation had allegedly been exposed by the Australian financial watchdog Austrac.

He alleges an Austrac report to the Australian government detailed more than $2 million in suspicious transactions during 2020, with then-president Lionel Aingimea and current president David Adeang among the beneficiaries.

"These transactions involve the movement of funds between personal and business accounts, transactions on behalf of others and activity indicative of money laundering and corruption," Senator Shoebridge said the report read.

The briefing was delivered to a string of Australian government departments and agencies.

Mr Adeang, who was re-elected in October, has previously been accused of corruption, including by benefiting personally from sales of phosphate exports.

Earlier this year, Australia secured a deal with Nauru to take the "NZYQ" cohort of refugees and asylum seekers, following a High Court ruling that they could not be held in indefinite detention in Australia.

The Greens have been scathing of that deal, which involves Australia paying Nauru $400 million in up-front costs and $70 million annually.

Senator Shoebridge alleges the Austrac briefing meant that Mr Albanese's government was aware of corruption at the highest levels of Nauru's government, and chose to partner with them anyway.

"Corruption follows cruelty, and it breeds in secrecy, and that's the Nauru deal and offshore detention all over," he said.

"We must stop the rorts, stop the cruelty, stop the corruption and end this toxic deal."

Foreign Minister Penny Wong did not respond to a request for comment, forwarding the matter to her department, which declined to comment.

Austrac declined to comment.

Nauru is a former Australian colony and a republic of 12,000 people.

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre advocacy head Ogy Simic said Australia's practice of offshore detention during the past two decades required a royal commission.

"Behind every secret deal and every dollar funnelled offshore are real people who have been shattered by this system," he said.

"Children learned to self-harm and succumbed to resignation syndrome. Children, women and men were sexually assaulted.

"People died waiting for medical care that never came, or by suicide driven by lethal hopelessness. For so many, the trauma caused by offshore detention will last a lifetime."

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