Last updated: December 26, 2014



It's no paradise, but at least residents are safe


Asylum seekers in the 'topside' processing centre in Nauru. Picture: Brad Hunter Source: The Australian

JUST watching the men working outside at the Nauru processing centre in the middle of the day was exhausting. Sweaty, having gone unshowered for the previous five days, they were labouring over saws and wood on the day I visited.

The toilet - that description is an exaggeration - was a throwback to previous centuries. It featured a wooden platform hidden behind a fabric screen.

At night, after a full day's work, the men slept on the ground or in tents. No airconditioning.

To gain an appreciation of the weather they endured, turn on an oven and open the door. The blast of roasting air is like what you feel in the middle of the day on Nauru at the Topside processing centre.

When it rains in Nauru, which is often, it's goodbye telephone services and often goodbye to all electricity too as the water pours down in sheets, flooding streets for the benefit only of mosquitoes.

Topside is a rocky wasteland at the highest point on Nauru, devoid of sea breezes. The camp is positioned near the dump.


The camp is a miserable place in almost every way imaginable. Such horror, you might think. How dare the Australian government allow asylum seekers to endure such a place without so much as a shower after almost a week.

Amnesty International said conditions in the centre were "appalling." But before you get too outraged, consider the following. The men I described were Australian soldiers sent to Nauru to repair and rebuild the old Howard government processing centre. Their conditions were far worse than those observed last week by Amnesty International.

Sleeping on the ground or in hot, leaking tents, putting up with crude toilets and no showers, are the same conditions endured by our soldiers all around the world. Yet the soldiers had no complaints. They loved their work on Nauru with their basic amenities.

After all, in other parts of the world they live in non-airconditioned tents and take enemy fire, so friendly Nauru was a welcome change.

While there, the soldiers built proper toilet and shower facilities for the asylum seekers but left their tents and some extras to accommodate the almost 400 people now living at Topside.

In the years after Labor closed the Howard-era centre, locals converted it to a rehabilitation site. It was later abandoned. Exposed electrical wiring was everywhere.


Their skill ensured none of the soldiers was seriously hurt at the site which they made safe for asylum seeker residents.

Since the army moved out, the Department of Immigration has added improved facilities at Topside. The centre now features a gym, an internet room, a phone room and recreation facilities.


Asylum seekers learn English in an airconditioned room. They have been playing cricket and football.

When Amnesty International visited last week, the delegation described inhumane conditions.

In a torrential downpour, they watched one man's shoes float away from where they had been sitting on the floor of a tent. It's an unusual incident to focus upon.

Australia is fulfilling important obligations to the asylum seekers. It is keeping them safe from persecution and is taking care of their most basic needs.

Amnesty International was right, however, about one element of what it calls a "toxic mix".

Uncertainty is ultimately what will do the asylum seekers the most harm, at least psychologically. They don't know exactly when processing of their refugee claims will start. They could be in Nauru for five years.

They also know people smugglers have outwitted the government and they will remain on Nauru as an example to others while asylum seekers in similar circumstances will be released into the community in Australia.

Almost 7700 people have arrived since the government announced its backflip on Nauru and Manus Island, more than the future offshore capacity of 2100.


As well, the asylum seekers on Nauru will know it is hard to get certainty from a government that from one month to another does not appear to have a clue what it will do next with boat arrivals.


Having dismantled the Pacific Solution, Labor is now finding, to horror in their camp, that John Howard wasn't so wrong after all.