Australia official says boy was not raped on Nauru

Australia's top immigration official has denied a five-year-old boy was raped on Nauru, where Australia holds immigrants claiming asylum.

The boy was neither raped nor five years old, Department of Immigration and Border Protection secretary Michael Pezzullo said.

He also criticised media reporting as "advocacy parading as journalism".

The statements follow a High Court judgement last week that upheld offshore immigration detention.

Paediatrician Karen Zwi told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. last week that a five-year-old child had suffered serious mental health problems after an alleged rape.

But immigration officials told a Senate estimates committee that the child had only "skin-to-skin" contact with another child detained on Nauru and was in fact aged 10.

Under Australia's strict immigration policy, all immigrants arriving without prior permission are detained. They are then processed in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, with those found to be refugees resettled in Papua New Guinea, Cambodia or Nauru itself.

The child could now be sent back to Nauru "within days", Mr Pezzullo said, along with 267 other asylum seekers also on the mainland.

That is despite calls from leaders in Victoria, South Australia and the ACT to allow the asylum seekers to remain in Australia.