With the unrest occurring on Manus Island at the moment, it is hard to fathom what life is actually like on one of our offshore detention centres. Former Murtoa resident and Salvation Army employee Jack Rabl spent eight months working as a case manager at the Nauru off-shore detention centre between November 2012 to July 2013.

Surreal existence

He says existence on the island is surreal; a place you could not imagine exists.

"We're talking about one of the most isolated places on the planet, the smallest country in the world with no other land for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres."

"An island where every piece of water, fruit and vegetable had to be shipped in from Australia and in the very centre of it is a moonscape of rocks from an old mine and fences and hundreds of people in tents inside there."

Jack says the centre is extremely overcrowded with a mixture of families, unaccompanied minors and pregnant women.

"We would have open-walled army tents, which were deteriorating, leaking roofs with tarps put over the top of them that could house 30 people."

"We're talking stretch of beds or just boards for beds, shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, so no room to roll over in your own space."

"And then communal spaces that are heavily patrolled by security presence but the tents themselves were under security presence as well."

Hopelessness and despair

He says the environement is filled with hopelessness and despair due to the constant uncertainty and misinformation regarding the future of detainees.

"People were told originally that it could be six months until they know their outcome, then they were told, when I was there, when Scott Morrison was opposition and he came over and said, this was in December in 2012, 'If we come to power, you will never leave here', that hit people pretty hard."

"When he did come to power, he has made it clear that he's quite happy for people to be there forever."

Jack says people have lost the ability to envision a future outside the detention centre.

He says the state of their mental health is frightening.

"It's destroying people, people who are arriving with so much strength and vibrancy having just escaped the most awful places on the planet were coming in so full of energy... even learning the language of other asylum seekers, you know Pakistani men learning Tamil a Sri Lankan language."

"I saw that just being drained away, day in day out."

Global refugee crisis

Jack says the government needs to review their asylum seeker policy as it is an international crisis.

"They get on boats knowing that they could die in the ocean, but they found the ability for that boat journey because they knew they would die in their homes if they didn't leave."

"That's what I heard again and again and saw the evidence of that and saw the photographs people had carried in their wallets with them of their brother, his mutilated body that was left at their doorstop."

"The problem isn't just our problem, this is all around the world."

ABC's Steve Martin spoke to Jack Rabl