A Labor-majority Senate committee raised concerns about new laws that do away with the obligation to provide non-citizens facing deportation to Nauru procedural fairness, in a report tabled hours after the legislation passed parliament.
Labor rushed the bill through parliament last week in a bid to bolster its powers to deport up to 354 members of the so-called NZYQ cohort to the island under a potentially mutli-billion-dollar deal signed last month .
The changes mean rules of natural justice — which in practice refers to the requirement to give people subject to a decision a fair hearing — won't apply in cases where the government has "third country reception arrangements".
It will also apply retrospectively, with three men currently challenging the government's plans to send them t