Evacuating the last refugees but paying $350m of Australian taxpayers’ money to keep the gates open? That’s plucking defeat from the jaws of victory
The trauma and torture of Australian border violence and its offshore detention centre has never left me, even though it’s been four years since I left Nauru and came to the US to start my new life here.
I became a refugee when I naively assumed that Australia was a nation that respected human rights and international law. I came seeking freedom under a democratic system, where my opinions could be expressed without fear of persecution or prosecution. I had so much faith in that ideal that I boarded a boat bound for Christmas Island. But instead, I was transferred to Nauru, a place without hope.