Eleven sick children were flown from Nauru to Australia for urgent medical attention on Monday night, Australian Border Force (ABF) officials confirmed to Senate Estimates.
The children and their families arrived in Australia around 6pm on Monday. There are still another 52 children on the Pacific island.
ABF's surgeon general and chief medical officer, Parbodh Gogna, told Senate Estimates on Monday that he had visited Nauru four weeks ago.
“I spoke to the doctors and the mental health staff, and there’s been an unprecedented jump in the number of people presenting to facilities in the last couple of months,” Gogna said.
Gogna said he saw mental and physical health problems among refugees on Nauru and "other worrying red flags where children weren't going to school".
ABF deputy commissioner Mandy Newton told estimates that there are 652 asylum seekers on Nauru. Of those, 541 have been determined to be refugees, 23 have asylum claims that have failed, and the statuses of another 88 are still being determined.
The United States has taken 276 people from Nauru as part of a resettlement deal, and rejected 148.
The incoming member for Wentworth, Kerryn Phelps, a doctor and former president of the Australian Medical Association, said the huge swing against the Liberals in last weekend's by-election prompted the government to remove the children.
Phelps said that getting children off Nauru would be one of her top priorities once in parliament.
"We do need to bring an end to offshore detention. It's cruel and unusual punishment," Phelps said during an appearance on ABC's Q&A.
"We need to bring all of the children and their families, not just the very sick children — we don't wait 'til there's an emergency — but all of the children and their families to Australia for urgent medical, psychological, and community treatment."
The government has indicated it is open to New Zealand's offer to accept up to 150 refugees, but only if the so-called back door is closed. The government wants to introduce legislation that would prevent any refugees on Nauru from ever travelling to Australia.
Labor has indicated it would support the travel ban, but only if all children and their families were removed from Nauru.
"Labor wants to prioritise the health of vulnerable children in Nauru," shadow immigration minister Shayne Neumann told ABC.
Neumann wrote to immigration minister David Coleman on Monday night to say Labor would support the government's legislation on a number of conditions:
"The first condition would be that the prime minister would guarantee that those children and families from Nauru would be transferred to New Zealand and appropriate conditions negotiated with the New Zealand government," Neumann said.
"Secondly, that the lifetime ban [on travel to Australia] would only apply to that cohort of people who go to New Zealand from Nauru – the children and their families.
"And thirdly, if the prime minister was concerned about some sort of backdoor passage to Australia, that that particular amendment would limit the opportunity for people to come to Australia by amendments to the subclass 444 – which is the Special Category Visa which allows New Zealanders to come to Australia as a right."
Greens MP Adam Bandt, independent MP Andrew Wilkie, and Centre Alliance's Rebekha Sharkie introduced a private members bill on Monday that would require every child and their family to be brought from Nauru to Australia for medical assessment.