Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare warned yesterday that more boats bearing ”several hundred” asylum-seekers could attempt the journey to Australia before next year.
On Thursday, Mr Bowen said the Government was willing to consider Nauru on top of its Malaysia Solution in the ”spirit of compromise”.
The Rudd Government closed Australian detention facilities on Nauru in 2008 when it scrapped the Pacific Solution.
But hopes for a compromise faded yesterday morning when Mr Abbott once again dismissed the Malaysia option.
”I think the time for Malaysia has well and truly passed,” he said in Melbourne, while repeating his call for the Government to contact the President of Nauru.
”I say enthusiastically, yes, yes, yes to Nauru.”
Before the meeting, Mr Swan said Mr Abbott’s attitude towards the affair was deplorable.
”He obviously wants the boats to keep coming,” Mr Swan said. ”What we’ve done is flush out Mr Abbott who now, I think, is guilty of an abject failure of moral leadership.”
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