EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Independent of that Four Corners investigation is the research by Amnesty International seasoned researcher who gathered interviews with detainees on Nauru in July.

Anna Neistat joins me now in the studio.

Welcome, thank you for being here.

ANNA NEISTAT, SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR RESEARCH, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: Good evening.

EMMA ALBERICI: What is the information that's new in this report because we already knew you'd been there in July?

ANNA NEISTAT: Right, I think first of all it is the scale that we're showing in the report. This report is based on more than 100 interviews.

We did follow up research after my visit to Nauru in July in Australia, meeting with more service providers, with families of the refugees. As you know there are many families that are split.

So it is really the detail and the scale of the abuse that we are showing which allows us to come to a very serious conclusion - that it is the system that amounts to torture and that the Australian Government is fully and squarely responsible for this deliberate system of abuse.

I think it was necessary to put all of this information together to come to this type of conclusion.

EMMA ALBERICI: And how did you arrive at this conclusion that what is happening on Nauru amounts to deliberate torture by the Australian Government, an extraordinary claim?

ANNA NEISTAT: First of all you look at what is actually happening. You just heard an interview, aired an interview with a child. I spoke to many children, many of whom talked about wanting to commit suicide, some of them have.

The level, the general level of mental trauma in Nauru is something that I haven't seen in any of the war zones that I've worked in, and there were many.

The deterioration of people's physical health is mind boggling, the fact that they are suffering for years on end from conditions that have never been treated and of course, the fact that almost on a daily basis they are subjected to physical assault and sexual assault in the case of many women, that is not being investigated, that is being perpetrated with absolute impunity and all of that against the background of general day-to-day humiliating and degrading treatment that by now has been highlighted not only by the Committee on the Rights of the Child but UNHCR and UNICEF and pretty much every single person who opened their mouths to talk about Nauru.

So on one hand there is this abuse and on the other hand I think there is no question at this point that this abuse is deliberate.

The Australian Government is not even hiding the fact that the system was put in place as a deterrent.

So essentially, we have a system where people have to be subjected to extreme levels of suffering so that others who try to seek asylum in Australia are not tempted to do so.

And in our assessment that pretty much amounts to torture.

EMMA ALBERICI: Did you find any evidence of what it is that is stopping people getting on the boats now, is it the turn backs or is it this treatment that their compatriots are experiencing on Nauru and Manus Island?

ANNA NEISTAT: First of all, let's not kid ourselves, the boats haven't stopped coming, they just don't sink at the Australian shores anymore, they are pushed back at earlier stages and people do continue to die at sea.

EMMA ALBERICI: They do?

ANNA NEISTAT: Well, you know, there have been recent reports, I mean, of course not at that scale so we are not going to deny it but people also die on Nauru and that's also what our report makes very clear. They commit suicide.

We all know about the most famous cases where people, notorious cases where people set themselves on fire and died as a result.

EMMA ALBERICI: How many people have died on Nauru? Asylum seekers and refugees?

ANNA NEISTAT: I actually don't have this data because data is very difficult to obtain. I documented several cases, not all of them as a result of suicide. There is another man for example who died in hospital in Nauru because of a heart condition.

Of course I cannot judge whether he would not have been saved if he were in Australia but people do die and there are people with conditions that were it, at least judging by the medical documents, it sounds like it is cancer. It sounds like they are not getting proper treatment. It looks like they are not getting proper treatment.

So we can all predict what is outcome is going to be. Let me just say this, we all know very well that when the Australian Government is saying this policy is in place to save lives, to save lives by deterring others, but, again, I have been working in many crisis and conflict zones for the last 15 years and quite honestly in every single situation whenever there were atrocities being committed against the people of the country or some other people, the government came up with the exact same argument - that they're saving lives and ensuring security.

I don't want to go through too many examples but I think all of us can think of the most recent ones so this argument is not new.

And like many other situations, in this one, it is not, it doesn't justify the kind of abuses that people are being subjected to.

EMMA ALBERICI: And those children who saw who were self harming, what happens to them when they self harm on Nauru?

ANNA NEISTAT: Well, it is a good question and the answer is essentially nothing. There are no child psychologists who are there permanently, there are psychologists who come and go, so they may see children.

Some of the children are prescribed very strong medication, anti-depressants and sedatives, we cite the names of the medication and of course, we spoke to the medical experts who basically say that this medication should never be prescribed to children as young as the ones that we mention in our report but then essentially nothing happens and they usually continue to self harm.

Today's report makes it very clear that these children, some of them, have not been to school for years now because the moment they started going to a local school they have been subjected to pretty violent bullying, again with no action taken by the school authorities or the authorities on the island.

These are children who are seeing their families' mental health deteriorating day by day, who see their parents suffering enormously not only because of their own problems but because they, of course, like every parent they can see there is nothing they can do to stop their children's suffering and of course, all of that adds to their absolute mental anguish.

EMMA ALBERICI: We are told time and again that allegations of abuse and any sort of harm against asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru must be dealt with by the Nauruan government because of course, it is happening in their country, tell us how that is going and how many Nauruan citizens have been charged or arrested for causing harm or abuse to asylum seekers or refugees?

ANNA NEISTAT: None to my knowledge. We did look into this. We tried to ask this question to the Nauruan government who has not responded, but we are not aware of a single case where a Nauruan citizen has been prosecuted let alone sentenced for abuses committed against, for violence committed against refugees.

In most cases, and these cases are documented in detail in our reports, the refugees are not even able to submit a statement because the police claims they don't have a working computer and when they say they are willing to write it by hand they say they are out of paper. So it ends there rather than going to investigation, prosecution and a court hearing.

But I think the most important thing here to remember is of course the Nauruan government is responsible. Let's not relieve it of it's responsibility. It is happening on its sovereign soil and it is receiving enormous amounts of money from the Australian government to have the system within its borders but it is the Australian government that put the system in place.

It is the Australian Government that is paying billions of dollars of Australia's taxpayers' money to keep the system in place. It is the Australian Government that hires and signs contracts with almost everybody who works on the island.

So I think to deny responsibility for what's happening there by the Australian Government does not really pass the laugh test anymore.

EMMA ALBERICI: Are you suggesting that certain individuals working for the Australian Government should be prosecuted under international law?

ANNA NEISTAT: I'm very glad you are asking this question because I think that no, we are not suggesting it in the report, not yet at least but I think the fact that the question is being asked and I think it is being asked, there are individual lawyers who are contacting the International Criminal Court to see whether Australia can be taken there.

EMMA ALBERICI: Torture, the Convention against Torture?

ANNA NEISTAT: There is the Convention against Torture and there, of course, we do think the Committee against Torture should start looking into this.

That it would not be a prosecution per se in a criminal sense, the way the International Criminal Court would do it but it will be a very strong international action against Australia.

But I do think at this point there is still time and chance to change it at the national level. I think there is still time for the Australian Government to change this tide, to stop this policy, to bring people back and to find better, humane solutions that would both save lives and provide protection to those who deserve it.

EMMA ALBERICI: And what are you suggesting there? What is it you are calling on the Government to do?

ANNA NEISTAT: We have a fairly long list of alternatives, of policy solutions in the report and, of course, there have been many organisations talking about them.

Recently they include, of course, developing regional mechanisms so Australia can actually help other countries in the region to develop better protection mechanisms so that people can seek asylum there.

EMMA ALBERICI: The Australian Government has said they offered, they offered asylum seekers the opportunity to resettle in Cambodia?

ANNA NEISTAT: Right, and out of five people who took this offer that, by the way, cost the Australian Government $55 million, only one remained because of how horrendous the conditions were there and four others went back to their home countries where, to the same persecution that they fled from.

So when we are talking about regional solutions we are not talking about finding a country where people can be showed off, be it Nauru, or PNG or Cambodia, we are looking at adequate regional protection mechanisms so that it could be a real responsibility sharing rather than just buying space somewhere far away from Australian shores.

But it is also, for example, increasing opportunities for these people to come to Australia through other legal means.

Almost every single person I spoke to on Nauru is highly educated, these are nurses, engineers, teachers, these are people that Australian society can really benefit from so not all of them need to come here on humanitarian grounds, many of them can come here as skilled workers, as students, and that would also solve part of the problem.

So you need to look at the range of solutions and so far they have not been looked at, not because they don't exist or because they're worse than what's happening in Nauru but because there was a lack of political will on behalf of the Australian Government to look at them.

EMMA ALBERICI: And help us just briefly before I let you go, help us understand why they prefer to stay in the processing centre than mix in the community of Nauru? The whole idea was that what we didn't find palatable, that they were locked up, that they were in a detention centre, but it seems they prefer to be in the detention centre than to be out in the Nauruan community?

ANNA NEISTAT: I think there are two main reasons. First of all, nobody offered them to stay on Nauru. Let's not forget that there is no offer to stay on Nauru indefinitely. So you can try to mix up for a couple of years and then you don't know where you are going to end up, that is part of the problem with the policy, right, there is no clear solution as to what is going to happen.

Second of all so far, the community, and I wouldn't say everybody, but the community as a whole did not seem particularly welcoming and quite honest I don't blame Nauruans.

We are talking about the country that has the third largest per capita refugee population in the world. There are 10,000 Nauruans and over 1,000 refugees on the island.

They do see that, they do think that the refugees get a better deal but they also have this conflicted view. Many of them benefit from refugees being there but at the same time they feel they can benefit more.

The most frequently stolen item is mobile phones because this is something that the refugees cannot live without so they do get it at whatever cost and this is something that is being stolen from them day after day after day.

So I do think from what we have seen in schools for example, in the school, from what we have heard about the kind of treatment they get in the hospital, I don't think the community in Nauru is ready to accept the refugees.

It is not overwhelmingly so. People, of course, form friendships and many people talked about the kindness of the nurses or some other people in Nauru but it in no way suggests that this is a solution.

EMMA ALBERICI: Anna Neistat we have to leave it there. Thank you for coming in.

ANNA NEISTAT: Thank you very much for having me.

EMMA ALBERICI: And we did invite the Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to appear on the program tonight but he was unavailable.