The Australian Greens have condemned Kevin Rudd's latest cruel manoeuvring and bribery of Nauru.

Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said: "The Prime Minister is caught out by his own rush to cruelty.

"Kevin Rudd said there would be no exceptions, but when it became clear he couldn't send children under seven or pregnant women because of malaria, he had to hurriedly cobble together a new cruel punishment for them.

"Kevin Rudd has come up with Nauru not only as a place of punishment, but as a place of resettlement. It is cruel and absurd.

The Australian Greens have launched a new plan to give refugees a safer pathway to protection.

The plan includes increasing the government's humanitarian intake to 30,000 a year, providing an extra $70 million per annum in emergency funding to help fast track the processing of refugee claims in Indonesia and shutting down all detention camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

Prime Minister Rudd's refugee announcement is Australia's day of refugee shame, Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said.

"A rich country like Australia paying off a poor country to take our desperate refugees is passing the buck and an abrogation of our responsibilities to people and the international community," Senator Milne said.

"It's not a regional solution, but a radical, right-wing, hard-line response. Manus Island will be Australia's gulag in PNG.

The Australian Greens are calling on Labor to end the detention of children after six youths were taken to hospital following a fight between a group of teenagers at Pontville Detention Centre in Tasmania.

Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said this was the second incident in less than a month and was ample evidence that children needed to be put into families in the community.

"Keeping children in detention is shocking," Senator Christine Milne said.

Subjects: coal seam gas, asylum seekers

"The Prime Minister should cease her offensive rhetoric on the issue of 457 visas" Australia Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said

"It's clear that ugly language is being used that is not going to help protect local jobs - instead it is just likely to whip up fear in the community.

"If the Prime Minister was serious about protecting local jobs and not just dog whistling, she would bring back proper labour market testing and get behind the Greens legislation to advertise jobs locally first.

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Subjects: Asylum seekers, children in detention, Manus, Pontville, ACT Liberals.

Christine Milne and Sarah Hanson-Young responded to the Government's Murray Darling Basin Plan, and responded to questions on asylum seeker policy, the Tasmanian forest talks, and Michael Danby

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Subjects:  Murray Darling Basin Plan, asylum seekers and temporary protection visas, Tasmanian forest talks, Michael Danby.

Christine Milne and Sarah Hanson-Young addressed the pressto comment on the Government's punitive asylum seeker policy and the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

Transcript

Subjects: Asylum seekers, Gaza, Murray Darling