Under the strict guidance of Australian Border Force, occupants of MITA – more commonly known as Broadmeadows Detention Centre – have been segregated. Single men, single women and families, and ASIO detainees have all been placed in separate, locked compounds and are unable to socialise or move freely through the facility.

New Zealand’s conservative Prime Minister John Key is indicating that his country’s offer to accept 150 refugees a year from Australia’s immigration system still stands and could include taking some, or all, of the 267 asylum seekers. The offer reflects the general paradox in New Zealand’s approach to refugees and asylum seekers: in a theoretical sense, it looks and feels comparatively generous, yet in a concrete sense it’s not nearly enough.

As an Australian colonial possession from the First World War to 1968, Nauru was the ‘prize of the Pacific’, in the words of historian Nancy Viviani. Nauru, along with New Guinea, was part of what the Australian ruling class felt to be its legitimate claim: colonial control over the Pacific. Often called the ‘Father of Federation’ in Australia, Henry Parkes thought ‘we ought to hold mastery of the hemisphere’. Australia ousted Germany from both Nauru and New Guinea, and fought for joint British-French control of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), where Australia also sourced slaves.