'Back to detention centres': Hanson faces off with Greens senator over Aussie-born refugee children
Pauline Hanson has faced off against Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young after backing a plan to remove Australian-born children of refugees from the country.
It’s been revealed asylum seekers brought to Australia from Nauru and Manus Island will have their benefits cut and eventually be sent off shore.
The move to deport refugees will reportedly also be extend to children born on Australian soil, which has drawn scorn from Labor and the Greens.
On Sunrise on Monday morning, Ms Hanson-Young labelled the One Nation leader a "very tricky politician” in a fiery showdown over the issue.
Hanson said she would take the slight “as a compliment” as she refused to budge on letting Australian-born asylum seeker children remain here because their parents are "not eligible to stay".
Appearing on Sunrise with Hanson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said deporting children was “one of the harshest parts of this”.
The Greens senator said there were about 50 children born in Australia who are likely to be sent off shore to Nauru where “conditions are atrocious”.
“These children were born here. They should be allowed to stay.”
The senator asked whether the more than $500,000 taxpayer dollars per child to send them to offshore detention centres was worth it.
But the One Nation leader pointed out that while these children might be born here, “it does not make you an Australian citizen”.
“We have a law here,” Hanson said.
“They belong with their parents. Their parents are not eligible to stay in Australia. They go back to the detention centres.“
Hanson corrected her senate colleague, saying it was closer to “$572,000 per person at the cost of the taxpayer… to stop these people.”
The Queensland senator urged people to get out to rural and regional Australia where “towns are dying, kids are on drugs, there are problems that you can’t get work”.
“I want to clean up my own backyard. I am not like you,” Hanson said to Hanson-Young.
But the Greens senator urged the One Nation leader to “have a little bit of heart”, adding, “I find it extraordinary, you say you care about people”.
“I just don’t think you can call a child that’s been born in Australia ‘illegal’.”
Hanson said her first priority was to Australians, which drew scorn from Hanson-Young who called her “a very tricky politician”.
“Thank you,” Hanson said, “I will take that as a compliment.”
