Did I really say this, OMG.
Political editor, The Age
Julie Bishop must have left her briefing notes behind when she confronted a BBC journalist who accused her government of operating a kind of ''Guantanamo Bay'' for asylum seekers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.
Either that or the normally unflappable foreign affairs minister was so taken aback by the depiction of the government's ''uncivilised'' conduct, she forgot a few facts when defending Operation Sovereign Borders to a British audience.
First came the assertion that the claims of asylum seekers ''are processed in third countries, and then we look for resettlement in other countries, including in Australia - and we've done this before and it worked''.
If this were the case, some of the concerns of human rights agencies would be allayed, but the message to boat arrivals is that they will never be resettled in Australia.
According to Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, the only resettlement option for those on Manus Island whose refugee claims are recognised is resettlement in Papua New Guinea
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