In my day job in the construction industry, I specialise in alternative dispute resolution in the thriving gas pipeline sector in Western Australia. By night, I get to follow my true passion as a human rights advocate. I work with the men, women and children interned in the Manus Island, Nauru and Christmas Island detention centres. I speak with them daily, organise lawyers to represent them and co-ordinate complaints on their behalf (complaints are taken more seriously if an Australian lodges them). I sometimes put them in touch with journalists.

More than half of the people I work with have suffered torture and/or trauma before seeking asylum in Australia by boat. They are then detained indefinitely, without having committed a crime, in conditions unduly harsh for even the most despicable murderer or paedophile; conditions that lead about a third of asylum seekers to attempt self-harm and/or suicide during their time in detention.

Those who speak with me send me photos and testimonies and beg me to have them published. They tell me they are under constant threat of reprisals: from locals who taunt them by making the sign of slitting their throats, and guards who they allege encourage them to commit self-harm. Many feel a return to their homeland and the prospect of being killed there is better than the uncertainty of indefinite detention and possible death on Manus Island.

Over the past week, I have relived a dozen times the trauma of the February attacks on the Manus Island detention centre. I travelled to London, Paris and Geneva for eight days to tell the world about what is happening on Manus. I organised interviews and meetings with media, non-government organisations and international human rights specialists.