It’s more than seven years and four prime ministers since the Australian government said: “Asylum seekers who come here by boat without a visa will never be settled in Australia.” Yet more than half are still stuck in the limbo of Australia’s offshore processing regime, on remote islands, in detention, or with the uncertainty of temporary protection visas.
On Human Rights Day, Thursday 10 December, Guardian Australia launches our Lives in limbo series, which examines the abject failures of Australia’s offshore processing policy.
On 19 July 2013 the then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, announced that those who came by boat seeking asylum would never be settled in Australia. Instead they would be sent offshore and have their asylum claims processed there.
Between the declaration of that policy and the last transfer offshore in December 2014, Australia sent 3,127 people seeking protection as refugees to Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.
Reporters Hannah Ryan and Michael Green and former foreign correspondent Ben Doherty have investigated what happened to those 3,127 people and where they ended up.
Our analysis reveals that although most have been recognised as refugees almost half still face an uncertain future.
Some remain on Manus and Nauru – despite government claims to the contrary. Many have been evacuated to Australia for medical reasons or to accompany someone who is not well, then detained or released into the community on strict conditions.
Some have been deported back to their home countries – voluntarily or forcibly – while many others have been settled elsewhere.
And 13 are dead.
The launch of the Lives in limbo series ties in with the recent launch of the Temporary podcast – which in eight parts profiles some asylum seekers from the so-called “legacy caseload”, the 30,000 people who came to Australia before the July 2013 announcement.
Both groups – those who came before and after the July 2013 announcement – have been stuck in limbo, subjected to a cruel, arbitrary process destined to keep them temporary forever.
These two series look closely at the asylum seeker crisis the Australian government created and at the lives of all those who have been forced to live with its failures.
Guardian Australia’s Lives in limbo project is supported by the Trimtab Foundation, and the Temporary podcast is a co-production between the University of New South Wales and Guardian Australia and was funded by the Kaldor Centre.
