All language subtitles for Chasing.Asylum.2016.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG2_English

(smoke whooshes)

(boat motor runs and waves splash)

(unsettling music)

- We we will decide who
comes to this country

and the circumstances in which they come.

(crowd applauds)

We just can't continue
sending a signal to the rest

of the world that this is a
nation of easy destination.

(unsettling music)

- This House today can send a
very clear message to asylum

seekers who are contemplating
risking a voyage at sea

and that message very
clearly is don't risk it,

don't give your money to a people smuggler

because you will not be better off.

- I make absolutely no apology whatsoever

for taking a hard line on
illegal immigration to Australia.

- What the Australian people

elected us to stop the boats.

This is a national emergency,
we've got to treat as such.

- This is a border security operation.

Our resolve to implement
what we have promised

the Australian people to
stop the boats is absolute.

(unsettling music)

(camera rattles)

- [Social Worker] Thank you.

- [Guard] You're welcome, enjoy your day.

- [Social Worker] You too.

- [Guard #2] How are you this morning?

- [Social Worker] How are you?

- [Guard # 2] Good, how are you?

- [Social Worker] Good thank you.

(rock crunches)

I knew it was a detention centre.

I didn't know there'd
be so many high fences,

that people would be so
restricted in their movement,

that they would live in tents,

that people have already been
there for over 400, 500 days.

I didn't know there'd be
so many security personnel.

It feels militarised.

(unsettling music)

- A friend of mine called me and told me,

"hey they're hiring people to go to Nauru,

you should go you're
interested in asylum seekers."

And I thought, yeah, yeah I guess I am,

so she gave me this number
and she got the number off

of Facebook Ad, believe
it or not, and I called

this number and said
I'd like to go to Nauru,

and the woman said: "sure
when can you leave?"

- I was a student at
Macquarie uni in Sydney

and I joined the Salvation
Army Society on Facebook,

and they posted an add about going to work

in Nauru and at the time they made it

sound like really nice out there.

They made it sound like
it was just a two week

kind of holiday, you could
bring your friends along.

Yeah I called the number that
was listed on the website

and two to three days later I was

in Nauru with two of my
best friends from school.

My friend that came with, he
was a manager at McDonald's

and my other friend
packed boxes in a factory.

- A wide range of people
were hired and they were

18 year olds, university
students, retirees,

and the only thing that we
had in common was that none

of us had experience working
with refugees before.

(unsettling music)

I can't stress enough the remoteness

of the location of Nauru.

It's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It's an island of 10,000 people.

It takes 20 minutes to
drive around the island.

It's extremely hot.

(unsettling uptempo music)

You immediately notice
how poor the island is.

Then the Australian government
comes to the Nauru government

and says, we're gonna offer
you several billion dollars

over the next however many years

to house a few thousand asylum seekers.

For a failing economy
like Nauru, I can imagine

it would seem like a very good option.

(rock crunches)

On my first day we had
moved up to the camp.

The Salvation Army gave
us a very small briefing

and said go out and help
them and be their friends.

- The lady that took
us in there, she said:

"okay now, we want you to get in pairs.

I'll be back in a couple of hours,

go and mingle", and then she just left.

(unsettling music)

- I went up to a group
of men who were sitting

under the only tree in the whole centre.

I asked them how they
were and they were like,

they said to me: "why are you
here and why are we here?"

- How long will we be here for?

And we've been given as
instructions is go out

and help the men, and it's at that point

that I realised what the
hell am I doing here.

(unsettling music)

- [Social Worker] A lot of
people were really confused

when they first arrived in Nauru.

I remember one particular intake,

a lot of the men were
saying to me: "where are we,

I thought this was part of Australia?"

So it was up to us to tell them that no,

you're not in Australia, you're in Nauru.

- One of my most vivid
memories was a sign being

on the wall saying that staff would have

to be trained how to
use a Hoffman's knife.

When I asked what a Hoffman's
knife was it was the knife

used to cut people down
when they're found hanging.

Quite quickly I started to
realise that I had sent myself

to a place which I had
never would have gone.

- I don't think anybody wakes
up and says, I've decided

that I decided that I wanna
run a detention centre.

I grew up on Sydney's North Shore,

fairly comfortable
upbringing, upper middle-class

white guy in a place with
very few migrants at all.

And frankly didn't care about immigration,

didn't care about asylum seekers,

it wasn't something that
I confronted in my life

and didn't feel it was something
I was passionate about.

It wasn't something that
my friends talked about,

I just really didn't care,
it just didn't feature.

(rock crunches)

I suppose for me, my story
is about coming across

this policy issue completely
naive to the problems.

Initially it was about looking
after people in detention

and shifted to a policy of deterrence.

So you go from looking after
people to saying if you

come here we're gonna
make it worse for you

than if you stayed where you came from.

- The idea was to say we don't you

and your families coming
to Australia by boat

and so we're gonna make this
place as horrible as possible

to convince you to tell the people back

in your countries not to come by boat.

What that means for the people in offshore

detention centres is
that they're stuck there

with no idea of what will happen to them.

(foreboding music)

- The threat of asylum
seekers has been blown up

to create a huge political storm around

the issue, which then needs an answer,

and the answer is to
stop the boats coming.

And you'd be naive to think
that the hard-line policies

of the Australian government
have not done that.

They've attacked the
people smuggler's business

model, as they call it, successfully.

They've stopped the boats successfully,

but there is a human cost to that

and we see it in Indonesia, we see it

on Manus Island, we see it on Nauru.

(unsettling music)

(motorbikes revving)

I've been in Indonesia
for almost three years.

Probably the most common story I write is

on refugees and asylum seekers trying

to find a way through
Indonesia to Australia.

Now the boats have
stopped, the way is closed,

really it's about people who are stoppered

here and what their life is like.

(unsettling music)

(muted conversations)

They're unable to work,
if they have children,

the children cannot go to school.

Everything that they want costs

them money that they're unable to earn.

They're stuck in limbo here.

(keys pound)

(unsettling music)

(bread slams)

(bread slams)

- Okay thank you and again
come back here shopping.

(motorbikes rev)

(traditional Afghan music)

(boat motor runs)

- Today the Prime Minister
of Papua New Guinea

and I are announcing a major initiative

to combat the scourge of people smuggling.

From now on any asylum seeker
who arrives in Australia

by boat will have no chance of being

settled in Australia as refugees.

If they are found to be genuine refugees

they will be resettled
in Papau New Guinea.

Australia will continue its
cooperative arrangements

on people smuggling with
the Republic of Nauru

and looks forward to furthering

those arrangements in the future.

(ominous music)

(unsettling music)

(water splashes)

(unsettling music)

- And there was daily, plane
loads of detainees coming in.

Manus was to become a camp for single men.

G4S management approached
me to go up there

in a training role to train expat staff

in the position of Safety
and Security Officer.

I'd spent eight or nine years
as a prison officer, the only

people that I had experience
with was the criminal world.

It was not what I thought
a detention camp wold be,

one of the worst for accommodation,

a World War II hut made of
tin on a concrete floor,

122 double bunks in this shed.

Manus Island is tropical and those guys

were housed in it, a tin shed.

It was disgusting. The
odour was disgusting.

I just couldn't believe
what I was looking at.

It was amazing.

- Manus looked like a jail to me.

The men were padlocked in behind gates.

There was faeces, open
faeces on the ground.

Men didn't have enough
clothes. Men didn't have shoes.

They didn't have enough drinking water.

There was malaria. There was
sickness, disease, infection.

- Some of the guys were very
happy to see new staff arrive,

then it struck me they
were happy to see new faces

because of the boredom
that they were leaving.

Once we'd been there for a number of weeks

then they started to slip back into what

I now know as their own lifestyle,

they're just slant-shoulders,
just broken men.

These guys had no future and that's

what their faces showed to me.

- The message is simple
if you come to Australia

illegally by boat there is no way

you will ever make Australia home.

- The act of seeking asylum
is not illegal because it's

a right, it's a right that arises under

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

and it's also a right
that arises under a range

of international human rights treaties

such as the Refugee's Convention.

- The Refugee Convention
is one of the most humane

international understandings
on the planet.

It's the world's apology for what was done

to the Jewish people in the 1930s

for the doors closed in the faces

of the Jewish people trying
to feel the Holocaust.

It was an understanding between countries

that when people were seeking
protection from persecution

that they could cross a border,
they could seek protection

and Australia signed up to it.

Australia said look
yes, we decide who comes

into this country and we decide by signing

this convention that we'll
let refugees come here,

and we'll let 'em come as
they come everywhere else

in the world, we'll let 'em come by sea.

(unsettling music)

(rock crunches)

- [Social Worker] Hey there.

(fan whirs)

- It's quite obvious that the camps

are set up to send people home.

I know that it's not
supposed to be a holiday,

but it took about six weeks, I think,

for them to start to degrade mentally.

(bag closes)

- The whole concept of
indefinite detention

is this idea that there is no progress.

If you a criminal in Australia,
you say, you've committed

a crime, your punishment
is two years in jail.

For these men, they don't know
what crime they've committed.

Under the Refugee Convention
they've got every right

to come here and ask for protection,

at least have their stories heard.

When you've got this two year sentence

as a prisoner you can't
count down the days;

for these men, they didn't have that.

Day two is the same as day five,

which is the same as day a hundred,

except by day a hundred
you've spent 100 days

in this camp with no idea
of if you're progressing

any closer to your future goal.

(bag rustles)

(fan whirs)

- I never really had seen daily
self-harm, up to four a day.

There was no hope to give them.

I'd be lying if I told them I knew

and I could make their life
better 'cause I couldn't.

I saw men cut their
stomach open with glass.

One man take a fluorescent light tube

and beat himself across
the head and stab himself,

men suffocating themselves, men stitching

their lips, one man stitched his eyelid.

- A lot of cutting, sometimes superficial,

sometimes deeper, swallowing Rid,

swallowing washing powder,
swallowing razor blades,

people trying to hang themselves

with rope, fan cords, knitting wool.

They are incredibly
traumatised from where they're

coming from, what they're
seeking asylum from and they're

being really traumatised
by their current situation.

Their families are separated and they see

no prospect of them ever being reunited.

They see no hope for the future.

- A young Sri Lankan man
that I was working with,

he was Tamil, he was
about 24, 25 years old,

so we're about the same age,
he was living in an area

in Sri Lanka, there was a strong presence

of the Tamil Tigers, one day
they came to the family's house

and they shot his father in
front of him and he died.

He and his brother
decided to flee the area.

So they left for Colombo,
the capitol city.

They were caught there and he was kept

in prison for about one year he said

and he told me he was tortured
throughout the entire time.

He was highly distressed
when he was on Nauru.

He had a lot of symptoms of severe trauma.

He was complaining of
burning all over his body

all of the time and he had
a lot of cigarette burns

all over his back, and he said that

they had burnt his genitals as well.

The last time I saw him
he was really upset.

He was crying, he said: "my
life, why is this my life?

If tonight, I'm in bed and I
just slip a plastic bag over

my head and died no one would
know, no one would care."

I had nothing to say. I
didn't know what to say.

- [Interviewer] Was that
kind of situation common?

- [Social Worker] Yeah, yeah.

(rock crunches)

The deterioration amongst all the asylum

seekers no matter what their age is,

is probably what's hardest to see.

People have really severe
mental healt issues now

which they didn't have before.

People are talking to themselves.

People have psychotic episodes.

Most outs will be on a range
of medication, 'cause they'll

take sleeping tablets and
still won't be able to sleep,

and they're walking around
like zombies essentially.

They will be on anti-depressant and still

have thoughts every day
of suicide and self-harm.

The main thing you're doing for people

is keeping them alive, asking
them not to harm themselves,

asking them not to to kill themselves.

- [Interviewer] Do you tell them
you know things will get better?

- I tell them that yes, but
I don't know how and when.

And they know I don't know that.

(water splashes)

- By the end of my time at the department

we were fully aware of the impact

on someone's mental health on detention.

And so it was a lot less of a reaction

to someone's self-harm, it was more seen

as a well that was inevitable.

I found that really difficult.

I found it difficult to work
in a portfolio and a job

where our job was to implement
a deterrence strategy

and we knew that doing so
would mean people were damaged.

(unsettling music)

- Children have to be in
detention according to the

government's policies because
it's part of the deterrence.

In detention over time they develop

a range of disorders,
because it's miserable.

They're not given
opportunities to participate

in normal sorts of activities

that children require
for their development,

like opportunities to play even.

And then they have parents
who are made sick as well,

who end up not being able to parent them.

And there's some very young
babies in detention who,

they're not feeding properly,
they're not gaining weight,

failing to thrive is the medical term.

So all of it is really
harmful for children,

but it's considered the price
that's required to stop boats.

(unsettling music)

- [Social Worker] What's your name?

- Elsie.

- [Social Worker] Who are you looking for?

(speaks foreign language)

- Huh?

They're growing up on
white, phosphate rock

in mouldy, damp tents where they

have no privacy and no space.

You can't develop age
appropriately in a place like that.

There's lots of behavioural issues.

You see kids throwing
rocks, throwing chairs,

fighting with each other,
isolating themselves.

You see kids self-harming.

You see kids banging their heads on walls

and banging their heads on rocks.

The use of boat IDs as names is rampant.

Children will sign
artworks that they've drawn

with their boat ID; children will refer

to their friends by their boat ID.

It's like they've
forgotten their own names.

It's like they've forgotten who they were

that they're actually human beings.

(unsettling music)

- Sarah Hanson-Young, the
Greens senator in Australia,

she collected so many toys for kids.

Finally they approved all these toys

and it was arrived in Nauru.

They gave the kids a little number

and this said, you have surprise tomorrow.

The kids line up after
school, they give them a bag,

and they rip up the
bag, and one of the kids

from Sri Lanka and she grabbed this toy,

and it was soft toy, and after
months, months, and months

she grabbed this soft toy
and she didn't know what do

with it, she just rubbed
all over her neck and face,

and she was just screaming
of the joy, and we,

like me and Save the
Children we were just behind

the counter and we
basically burst to tears.

We could not believe
it that after one year

of being in detention
centre she finally grabbed

a soft toy and she could
hold it and it was hers.

And then we just felt like what the hell,

why we kept these kids in this condition.

(rock crunches)

(speaking foreign language)

(muted conversation)

(unsettling music)

- [Interviewer] Do you feel any

guilt or any guilt at all about--

- None.

- About children being
dealt with in detention.

- None whatsoever Neil.

- But there were ten year
olds on suicide watch.

- Oh Neil, the most
compassionate thing you can do

is stop the boats, we
have stopped the boats.

(rock crunches)

- For some time now there have
been persistent allegations

of serious physical and
sexual abuse of children

and women incarcerated in Nauru.

After a very long time
this led to the government

setting up an inquiry, which ultimately

ended up with what's
called the Moss Report.

(unsettling music)

- You see sexualized behaviours
amongst the kids there.

- [Interviewer] Like what?

- Like kids touching themselves

or touching other kids
in a sexualized manner.

- [Interviewer] How old were those kids?

- They're young, they're like under five.

Sexualized behaviour in kids of that age

suggests that they've had exposure

to sexual behaviour at
an inappropriate age.

(unsettling music)

The Nauru police force
aren't trained to investigate

or work with kids, or to
interview kids around disclosures.

The Nauru police work very slowly

and you often see no results, yeah,

there's been no
repercussions that I know of.

(unsettling music)

(speaking in foreign language)

(boat motor runs)

- We recognise that our border
protection policy is tough.

We recognise many would
see it as harsh, but it

has proven to be the only way
to stop those deaths at sea.

(unsettling music)

- The argument is that we've
got a right to put refugees

through hell or their
children through hell,

because it will stop people dying,

better that they be mashed up in Nauru

and Manus Island than die at sea.

And the deaths are appalling.

But I think it is profoundly hypocritical,

profoundly hypocritical
to claim that the policies

that are being pursued at the moment

by the Australian
government are fundamentally

humanitarian because
they stop these deaths.

- The deterrence measures of the sort

that the government is
employing do nothing

to address the desperate circumstances

which are leading to people taking

those desperate measures to get to safety;

and really all they're
doing is sweeping people

from our doorstep, so they don't die

on our doorstep, but
may well die elsewhere.

(unsettling music)

- There was a room change one afternoon.

One of the transferees
was outside, it started

to rain, the room change had taken hours,

and his possessions were getting wet.

I was standing at the door of his room,

he walked in briskly and I wasn't afraid,

I wasn't worried, I didn't
think anything of it

but two expatriate New
Zealand and Australian

security guards walked
over to where he was

in the room and beat him against the wall,

and twisted his back
over a metal bed frame

and punched him to unconsciousness.

I went and talked to the
managers and they said

don't talk about it,
it's not your problem.

Eventually I was interviewed by PNG police

and they shut the door behind
me, and they threatened me

and told me I should change my statement.

They gave me all the
other witness statements

that were by G4S and Salvation Army

managers who saw exactly what I saw

and had written in something
completely different.

So I changed my statement to
say that G4s only pushed him.

I didn't know what to do at that time

to get out of that situation,
I was really scared.

(muted conversation)

- Security guards when for
example, when the asylum seekers

are in the computer room
would like aim their hands

like this and pretend to shoot
at the back of their heads.

I saw guards say that
they were gonna urinate

in the drinking water
if the asylum seekers

wouldn't stop complaining
about dirty water.

They'd be racist, they would call

them names and tell them to go home.

- There were a group that had served

in the Australian Defence Force

in a lot of the countries
that asylum seekers

were actually coming from, so Afghanistan

was probably the main
one, and then there were

a few others that had worked as bouncers

in night clubs on the Gold
Coast and things like that.

They were very on edge and hyper-vigilant.

Yeah, that was really noticeable.

- [Male News Presenter]
The large riot broke out

at a processing centre on Nauru.

15 security guards were injured

as 300 detainees broke
out on the facility.

(man speaking in agony)

- [Male News Presenter] More
than a hundred asylum seekers

have been transferred into police custody

after the violence, which
caused $60,000,000 damage.

(unsettling music)

(protestors yelling)

- [Announcer] For two nights running

there's been chaos and
disorder on Manus Island.

The government says last night's

unrest began with demonstrations.

- [Female Reporter] We've
had very strong suggestions

from refugee advocates
that this was an attack

from outside, the detainees
inside were attacked

by PNG police is the assertion
and also angry locals

which machetes and other weapons

and that maybe even several were shot.

There reports are very difficult

to wade our way through at the moment.

- [Male Reporter] I cannot
confirm any of those reports.

Last night I heard there
had been a black out

at the centre and that the
protest was continuing.

(cries of agony and muted conversation)

- The veil of secrecy over the
Manus Island detention centre

was partially lifted today
with a report released

by the government into the
February riots at the PNG centre.

Immigration Minister
Scott Morrison joins us.

When you read the account
of Reza Barati's death,

it's very detailed, his
skull was shattered,

he was beaten with sticks
and kicked in the head

by more than 10 officers,
Australians and locals,

did you have even a moment of doubt

about the morality of
offshore detention centres?

- What occurred that night was criminal.

There was a terrible, tragic,

and distressing incident that took place

that night as you said
in your introduction.

What I said we would do in
response to this incident

is have an independent
report that would answer

the question, that's what
our police want to know.

(unsettling music)

(chickens cluck)

(plates clank)

(TV presenter speaks in foreign language)

(cars whoosh)

- [Female News Presenter] A 24 year old

Iranian asylum seeker has
died in a Brisbane hospital

tonight after his family agreed to have

his life-support machine switched off.

Hamid Kazhaei was pronounced
brain dead earlier

this week after reportedly suffering

blood poisoning from an infected foot.

The asylum seeker was
flown from Manus Island

to Brisbane last week, Scott Morrison says

the Immigration Department will

review the medical treatment he received.

- [Scott Morrison] Now I've asked

to review the medical
treatment of this young man.

(water flows)

- Myself and two of my
colleagues wrote explicitly

about medical concerns, in particular

infections starting in their feet.

Then a couple months later Hamid Kazhaei

still died of an infection
starting in his foot,

and we had already told
them months before,

and that's documented,
day, time, and everything.

What we had said is transcribed.

We had a Senate inquiry into the death

of Reza Barati and I don't
see anything changing.

I don't know what can help the men

at Manus Island or the people in Nauru.

We are telling the people what's happening

there and nothing's changing.

(unsettling music)

- I'm Peter Dutton, Australian Minister

for Immigration and Border Protection.

I've recorded this message to

provide some important information.

You will know by now that
plans are well under way

for the first group of refugees

to travel and settle in Cambodia.

Cambodian settlement
provides a great opportunity

for refugees to move forward
and begin the next phase

of their lives in a country
that is free from persecution.

(unsettling music)

- [Female News Presenter] Australia is now
in a refugee partnership with Cambodia.

Even on pen the deal's been done.

Australia's provided
a forty million dollar

down payment in additional aid.

Refugees from Nauru will be voluntarily

sent here in the months ahead.

Those who do come will be moving

to one of South-East Asia's
poorest nations where

the average wage is less than
a hundred dollars a month.

- The Cambodia deal shows
that Australia can spend

any amount of money doing
pretty much anything

to asylum seekers and the
Australian people will

accept it because we don't want them here.

(unsettling music)

- I wanna make it very
clear to all refugees

and transferees in Nauru that you will not

under any circumstances
be settling in Australia.

This is not an option that the Australian

government will every present to you.

(unsettling music)

- The current options
for refugees on Nauru

are either to live in the
community there temporarily,

to go to Cambodia, or to return home

to the real prospect of persecution.

- People don't see Nauru
community as a good settlement

option, there are no jobs
and if you do get a job,

you get paid three dollars,
four dollars an hour.

The cost of living is very high.

There was an occasion when
none of the supermarkets

even had any food and you
were paying 20 dollars

for a two litre carton of milk.

They have no travel document,
they have no options

of reunifying their
family with them on Nauru.

You live in demountable blocks.

You have to share rooms, you have

to share houses with
people you don't know.

You live behind high fences
and these accommodation areas

are staffed by security because
you're at risk from locals.

The locals make threats to the women.

They'll say when you get out
of camp, I'm gonna rape you,

or they'll proposition them for sex.

A lot of the women are very
scared to go into the community.

(unsettling music)

- The Nauru government has declared

that the detention centre
will become an open centre,

24 hours per day, seven
days per week, from today.

It says that all asylum
seekers are now free

to move around the island at their will.

Nauru is promising it will
finalise all remaining

refugee claims within the next week.

Hundreds will have to integrate

into the tiny island's population.

Can the Australian government
guarantee the safety

of the people as they're released

into the Nauruan communities,
particularly given

that women and children, 67
allegations of child abuse,

33 claims of rape and
sexual assault on Nauru.

Can the Australian government

guarantee these people's safety?

- Well Emma, the Australian government,

or the Queensland, or New South Wales,

Victoria government can't
provide you with that guarantee

for people coming out into
the Australian society.

We've provided additional
support through the

Australian Federal Police to
mentor those police on Nauru,

to help with them with
investigations, with prosecutions,

to make sure that we can provide support

to have an environment that
is as safe as possible.

- People are returning home
more now than they ever were,

returning to their country
of origin and then attempting

to seek asylum again
in a different country.

Nothing's changed for them
in their home countries,

often they'll state that they

are returning to extreme danger.

It's really hard to hear that they feel

like that's their only option.

It's hard to feel proud to
be an Australian citizen.

There's a lot of shame now associated

with being an Australian for myself,

because of the way
Australia's treating people.

I keep going back for clients
and for my colleagues.

You have clients when you go
on your respite, say to you

before you're going: "are you coming back?

Please come back, please don't forget

about us, please don't leave us here."

So that is really hard to
hear and you wanna come back

for them, you want something to change

and you want to advocate
for them and fight for them.

And that keeps bringing
you back for that feeling

gets worn down by the
constant blockages you get

from immigration and the lack of change.

- Operation wise, everything
I was trying to bring to

the attention of management,
nothing's been done about it.

I got to a personal level of this

has got to stop and I can't stop it.

I was becoming emotional, there was a lot

of stressors starting to fall upon me,

because I'd voiced my opinion loudly about

what we were doing as a company.

I found a hand-written
note on my bed suggesting

that I should shut up or
somehow would come to myself.

And then I received a
message that I continued on

that the great possibility
that I would be found floating

alongside the HMS Choules at some stage.

That scared the shit out
of me, that really did

and I pulled the pin,
I said enough's enough.

It sat with me for
quite a number of months

and if I didn't speak
out, who was going to?

I've got a conscience and I
was brought up the right way

and I don't understand how
we can do this to each other.

So I felt that it was my turn, my time,

it was the right thing to do.

People need to talk out, we need

to tell each other what's going on.

(unsettling music)

- I think Australians are pretty
sick of being lectured to.

I really think Australians are sick

of being lectured to by the
United Nations, particularly,

particularly given that
we have stopped the boats.

(despairing music)

- [Male News Presenter]
Thousands are stranded at sea,

but the PM says he doesn't want

to encourage people to
risk their lives on boats.

- [Female News Presenter]
The Prime Minister

has ruled out resettling
any Rohingya asylum seekers

in Australia despite claims from Malaysia

and Indonesia, the load to
be shared among the region.

The United States has
offered to take a lead role

in resolving this crisis,
we simply don't know

how many people are out there
and they are drifting at sea.

(unsettling music)

- [Interviewer] If it was up to you now,

which country would you head for?

- I think all of person in the boat

now want to go to Australia.

(engaging music)

(helicopter whirs)

- It was the right thing to do.

We didn't have an option.

The fact that we had
been fighting in Vietnam

added to the sense of
obligation that I felt.

Within hours we persuaded Malaysia

to establish a processing centre.

People were processed, often
quite quickly in a month

or two, and if they were coming

to Australia they were flown to Australia.

So there was no danger
of people drowning at sea

once they'd go to their
processing centre in Malaysia.

As a consequence of
accepting Vietnamese refugees

we have a very vigorous, very loyal,

Australian Vietnamese community,
which adds to our culture,

adds to our wealth, adds to
the diversity of Australia

in very productive and beneficial ways.

(engaging music)

(gunfire)

(people yelling and horns honking)

(unsettling melancholic music)

(crowd applauds and whistles)

(unsettling music)

- [Tony Abbott] Well what
we do is we stop the boats,

by hook or by crook because
that's what we've got to do

and that's what we've successfully done.

And I just don't want to go into

the details of how it's done.

(unsettling music)

(boat motor runs and water splashes)

(unsettling music)

(dark music with piano notes)