Australia's offshore "processing" policy keeps some 1150 people, including 173 children, confined to a tiny tropical island in the Pacific whose indigenous population, on the whole, doesn't want them. Most have been there for more than three years.

There is no reason for them to hope that they won't be there for another three years, or 10, or a lifetime – unless they agree to return to the countries from which, usually for good reason, they fled in the first place.

Children playing near the Refugee Processing Centre on Nauru. Credit:Amnesty International

Theoretically, they are no longer detained. They can go where they like, within the rather strict limits imposed by thousands of kilometres of open ocean.

The Nauruans charge $8000 to process an application by an Australian for a journalist's visa. If the application is refused – as by far the majority are – this money is not refundable. In recent years only the Nine Network's A Current Affair, and The Australian's Chris Kenny, have been granted visas.