Why are activists so afraid of the truth about Nauru? (about Australian immigration detention)

The conspiracy theories began well before a single frame of the story went to air.

After spending years calling for media outlets to be allowed on the Pacific island to see what’s really going on in offshore detention centres, the Left press and refugee activists couldn’t have been more incensed one finally made it on.

.....we had no conditions imposed and were able to wander freely and see every part of the island, including the detention centres, that we wished to.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who previously called Nauru a “hellhole”, labelled our visit a “cynical political move on the eve of the election”, despite the fact the Australian government had no involvement whatsoever in our trip.

You have to wonder; if the half-truths and flat-out lies about our visit are being seized upon and repeated as fact so readily by activists and activist journalists alike, what other deceptions concerning more serious allegations about refugees — assaults, mistreatment, et cetera — are being swallowed verbatim?

The ABC has already had to apologise after falsely reporting a 5-year-old asylum seeker boy had been raped on Nauru, and expressed regret over its reporting of unsubstantiated claims by asylum seekers that they’d been burnt by Australian Navy personnel.

Still, many average Australians would have watched the story last night and wondered what all the complaining was about: on the whole, the refugees on Nauru are well-fed, most live in relative comfort and they’re free to move around as they please.

Perhaps that’s the unsanitised truth the advocates were so frightened would come out.

I enjoy your posts from the land of kangaroos and wallabies. Partly because it is so exotic to me. I think I would like to live there except I don’t care for venomous snakes and aggressive crocodiles.

Of course my family has been in Florida since at least the 1700s and we have crocodiles and alligators plus rattlesnakes and coral snakes in addition to bad tempered cottonmouths. Still those Australian ones are so much more toxic.

Now with Nauru you completely caught me unaware. I had never heard of it. I suppose the liberals think of Devil’s Island when they discuss it.

I have always thought islands were good places to keep prisoners.

I always get a little amused when Americans talk about how dangerous Australia is. Europeans, I can understand, but North America has its share of dangerous spiders and snakes and crocodilians - and you have bears and mountain lions.

As for Nauru - it’s a tiny Pacific Island nation, 10,000 people and the third smallest country by area in the world (behind Vatican City and Monaco). It used to be very rich because of massive phosphate deposits and the plan was that that money would be invested to give them income after the phosphorous ran out. It went wrong for them though, and they basically rely on Australia to survive now (it was a de facto Australian colony after World War II). Because our activist High Court made a bunch of rulings where they ‘discovered’ rights that asylum seekers acquired on landing on Australian soil that made it very hard for the government to deport those who weren’t genuine refugees, it’s become advisable for Australia to never let these people in even temporarily. Nauru is willing to host them while we process them in exchange for payment. If they are genuine refugees, Australia will help them find a home (although not generally in Australia - Australia does take refugees but not ones who try to sneak in illegally and most on Nauru are in that category - we take refugees out of refugee camps and who come here on genuine visas in the proper fashion).

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