420 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 40:401 There is no information publicly available as to the number of stateless persons detained in offshore processing centres in Nauru and Manus Island. However, recent news reports suggest that unsuccessful stateless applicants could be detained in Papua New Guinea’s gaols since they have no country to which they can return.95 Neither Papua New Guinea nor Nauru has ratified the 1954 Convention.96 Stateless persons come to Australia not only as onshore spontaneous arrivals but also through the humanitarian resettlement programme. Statistics compiled by the Refugee Council of Australia from the Department’s settlement reporting facility detail the number of stateless people from 2009–14 who were granted permanent residency (and who have therefore either become Australian citizens or are at least on a pathway to naturalisation in Australia). These figures include 3156 people accepted through the refugee and humanitarian programme, 302 people from the family migration stream, 23 people from the skilled migration stream and one person from an unidentified migration stream.97 Since the majority of applicants were granted permanent residency through the refugee and humanitarian programme, an analysis of the ethnicities of formerly stateless persons in Australia may provide further guidance on the ethnic composition of stateless asylum seekers and refugees in Australia. The Refugee Council of Australia has also reported that: The most common countries of birth for stateless people granted permanent residency in Australia between 2009–10 and 2013–14 were Iran and Iraq, with Kurdish the most common ethnicity. Other common countries of birth included the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burma, Kuwait, Tibet, India and Lebanon. Other common ethnicities included Arab, Rohingya and Tibetan.98 In sum, the limited available statistics, the absence of a procedure to systematically identify stateless persons and a lack of clarity about the definitions or process relied upon to compile the numbers outlined above make it impossi- 95 ‘Stateless Could Be Transferred to PNG Jail’, SBS (online), 2 August 2015 <http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/08/02/stateless-could-be-transferred-png-jail>. However, this is now subject to question in light of the decision of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea on 26 April finding that the detention of asylum seekers and refugees was unconstitutional: see Namah v Pato [2016] PGSC 13 (26 April 2016). 96 UN, Multilateral Treaties Deposited ST/LEG/SER.E/26 (1 April 2009) vol 1, 490. 97 Refugee Council of Australia, Statelessness in Australia (2015) 10–11. 98 Ibid 11. with the Secretary-General, UN Doc