Daniel Andrews: “Victoria will accept full responsibility for the families brought to Australia from Nauru."

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has written a powerful letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull offering his state to accommodate and “accept full responsibility” of the families and children brought to Australian from Nauru.

His letter comes in the wake of the High Court’s decision that the Australian Government’s offshore detention of asylum seekers indefinitely is legal. This has sparked concerns that 220 asylum seekers will be returned to Nauru, as well as 37 babies born from refugee parents in Australia.

“You have a clear obligation to support these children and their families, a political argument is no benefit to them,” Mr Andrews wrote.

“Instead, I write to inform you that Victoria will accept full responsibility for all of these children and their families, including the provision of housing, health, education and welfare services. I want these children and their families to call Victoria home.”

Mr Andrews has said that returning asylum seekers to Nauru would be returning them to a life of trauma.

The Victorian Premier’s strong stance has certainly won him a lot of support from the community.

And if this isn’t real, genuine politics – the sort of politics that we have been looking for, one where politicians stand up for what they truly believe in, then we don’t know what is.