Australian government cage mentality, asylum seekers, detention, youth detention. Illustration: Matt Davidson Four Corners did not break the story; Four Corners broke people's hearts. The reason the program had such an impact, the reason it unleashed such an outpouring of distress, the reason it inflamed our communal disgust at such injustice and inhumanity is that it obtained and showed footage of the bastardry and cruelty. Words can not adequately portray the horror. But images do. They seemed to stun our Prime Minister. "We're determined to examine the extent to which there has been a culture of abuse and indeed whether there has been a culture of cover-up," he rightly declared, having consulted with experts including the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Emeritus Professor Gillian Triggs. Yet Mr Turnbull, as a matter of proud policy, is guilty of presiding over eerily similar atrocities. Mr Turnbull is spending billions of dollars of Australian taxpayers' money on hell-hole detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru in which vulnerable people are being physically and mentally harmed and abused. Mr Turnbull risks being widely considered an arrant hypocrite, a dishonourable man and a craven leader. His is the government that attacked Professor Triggs and other public officers for drawing attention to the plight in mandatory detention of men, women and children legally seeking asylum from persecution and worse. His is the government that has, in what may well yet be found by the High Court to be an unconstitutional confection, created the draconian Australian Border Force Act 2015, which forbids, under threat of jail, anyone working in the centres from revealing to anyone anything they come across in their work. His is the government blatantly contravening international law; Australia is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which enshrines the legal right of people fleeing persecution to seek asylum in other countries. Mr Turnbull is but the latest of a shameful series of Australian prime ministers and opposition leaders who have demonised people seeking asylum and have cynically appealed to fear and misunderstanding in our community, rather than the goodness, compassion and decency revealed this week by so many citizens. Like the manifold issues associated with the plight of Indigenous Australians, the issues associated with people seeking asylum are complex.

Our government treats people seeking asylum cruelly. In both cases, were there an evident and easy solution, it would have long ago been instituted. But, while we are still working towards ways to close the gap between outcomes for Indigenous people and the rest of the community and towards finding a regional and methodical way of processing people seeking asylum and thus removing the incentive to risk their lives at sea, it is clear that what is happening is not the solution and is unsustainable. The billions of taxpayers' dollars spent annually on the offshore detention centres should instead be used to set up civilised processing centres in transit locations throughout our region; in other words, to establish effective queues. In both cases, what is happening is a blot on a nation that prides itself on fairness, kindness and opportunity. We should and must call out such inhumanity and criminality, which is being committed in our name. The Coalition and Labor are equally culpable. The first of them to quit this barbaric policy will reap the rewards of history. To end the inhumanity is not tantamount to promoting people smuggling. Preventing people from perishing during dangerous voyages across the sea is indeed a noble aim, but the human and economic cost of our successive governments' policies of mandatory offshore detention is utterly unjustifiable. Now, back to that parallel mentioned at the start of this column. Finally, and in courageous contravention of that gutless gag provision in the Australian Border Force Act, there is footage and testimony, every bit as damning and distressing as that of the NT detention centre, of what is happening to people in our detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru. It also features in a recently-released documentary, Chasing Asylum, by Melbourne-born Academy Award winner Eva Orner. Shortly before the film came out, Papua New Guinea's highest court ruled the Manus Island centre is illegal, creating an urgent need to resolve the fate of the more than 900 men, most of them proven to be genuine refugees, incarcerated there. And it was released only days after Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, in an act of despicable dishonesty and hypocrisy, blamed the epidemic of self-harm by desperate detainees on those who advocate a change in Australia's policy. (Disclosure: I am an ambassador for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the nation's biggest advocacy, aid and health organisation promoting and protecting the human rights of people seeking asylum.)

Like the Four Corners footage, Chasing Asylum should be seen by as many people as possible. Like the Four Corners footage, Chasing Asylum has the potential to galvanise long-overdue change. Like the Four Corners footage, Chasing Asylum reveals a culture of impunity that is anathema in our nation. It is currently being screened around Australia, and you can find details at chasingasylum.com.au. As many communities and organisations have, you can also host a screening. If you are unable to see it soon, it will be released on DVD and online before the end of the year. Ms Orner headed offshore this week ahead of a round of international screenings. The Four Corners footage has caused consternation around the world. And Australia is poised to be rightly shamed again as Chasing Asylum reaches a global audience. Good can come from shame. Mr Turnbull deserves credit for acting on the graphic evidence filmed in NT detention centres. He has the power, the opportunity and the duty to end the inhumanity in the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres which has now been filmed and thus can no longer be cynically and ignobly suppressed by our lawmakers. He has the power, the opportunity and the duty to end this culture of impunity and bastardry, and thus to close one of the most nefarious chapters in the history of our nation. Michael Short is The Age's chief editorial writer and The Sunday's Age's opinion editor. @shortmsgs