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Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru
What has happened on Nauru and Manus since Australia began its most recent offshore processing regime in 2012?
This essential book provides a comprehensive and uncompromising overview of the first three years of offshore processing since it recommenced in 2012. It explains why offshore processing was re-established, what life is like for asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Manus, what asylum seekers, refugees and staff in the offshore detention centres have to say about what goes on there, and why the truth has been so hard to find. In doing so, it goes behind the rumours and allegations to reveal what is known – and what still is not known – about Australia’s offshore detention centres.
This essential book provides a comprehensive and uncompromising overview of the first three years of offshore processing since it recommenced in 2012. It explains why offshore processing was re-established, what life is like for asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Manus, what asylum seekers, refugees and staff in the offshore detention centres have to say about what goes on there, and why the truth has been so hard to find. In doing so, it goes behind the rumours and allegations to reveal what is known – and what still is not known – about Australia’s offshore detention centres.
523 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 22, 2017
This is the saddest book I have ever read cos everything it says is true. Unfortunately it will probably not be read by those who should read it.
This book uses the information that is publicly available to document Australia's disgraceful political system that has implemented the offshore detention system. Even sadder than what is in the book is that 18 months after it was publish the system is still in place and the people are still stuck in Manus and Nauru.
This book uses the information that is publicly available to document Australia's disgraceful political system that has implemented the offshore detention system. Even sadder than what is in the book is that 18 months after it was publish the system is still in place and the people are still stuck in Manus and Nauru.
March 5, 2017
This is a story you think you already know, but Gleeson drives home the horror, the lies and the shameful way in which Australia has treated people fleeing persecution in their home countries. It's meticulously sourced, clear and heartbreaking - a crucial book.
May 29, 2016
A few weeks ago, in a heartfelt and provocative speech delivered at the 58th Logie Awards, Australian television's night of nights, actress Noni Hazlehurst took subtle aim at Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's recent admonition to Australians regarding his government's hard-line immigration policy. "We cannot be misty-eyed about this," Turnbull said. "We have to be very clear and determined in our national purpose . . . We must have secure borders and we will, and they will remain so, as long as I am Prime Minister of this country." Although there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, and has been throughout our entire history, we Australians pride ourselves on being fair, compassionate, and welcoming people. Exactly the sort of people, that is, who you might expect to see getting "misty-eyed" about the plight of the thousands of asylum seekers currently locked up for an indefinite period in the Australian-run detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island.
That the vast majority of us seem not to care at all about these men, women, and children probably owes a lot to how effectively our previous two governments have suppressed information about how the detention centres are managed and what it's like to live in them as an asylum seeker trapped in the agonising wait for a future that never comes. Some of our frozen empathy might also be explained by our inability to imagine and insert ourselves into that harsh reality, so far removed from our own that it may as well be happening on another planet. These arguments don't hold much water, if you ask me: in an age where a vast ocean of knowledge laps at our fingertips 24/7, every single one of us, equipped with a brain and enough curiosity, has the ability to investigate, read up on, and think critically about the problems facing our country. Over the past four years, we have all been just a click or turn of the page away from media reports about the conditions on Manus and Nauru. We have all heard at least snippets of the grim stories bravely — illegally — sent or brought home by social workers, security guards, medical staff, and others who keep the detention centres running. We have all now had the chance, or in fact, plenty of chances, to picture ourselves in their shoes, and in the shoes of the desperate people they were employed to care for. Ignorance, then, has never really been a valid excuse for lack of empathy, but the publication of this brilliant new book by Madeline Gleeson has made it a weaker claim than ever before.
Offshore: Behind the wire on Manus and Nauru weaves together information from a vast range of sources to tell the story of Australia's two most (in)famous detention centres since Julia Gillard's Labor government reintroduced offshore processing in 2012. Using newspaper reports, records of parliamentary inquiries, video transcripts, interviews, private communications, official documents released by governments, the UN, and NGOs, and other material, Gleeson presents a detailed narrative of events on Manus and Nauru over the past four years. Like any retelling of real events, it is undeniably selective, and critics of the book will no doubt take issue with Gleeson's representation of certain chaotic incidents, such as the violent disturbances on Nauru and Manus in July 2013 and February 2014, respectively. To her credit, though, Gleeson writes with impressive restraint, in a lucid style that is remarkably free of the emotion that inevitably (and justifiably) seeps into most writing about this issue on both sides of the ideological divide (emotion that I myself find impossible to let go of). This isn't to say that Gleeson writes dispassionately, or without agenda: Offshore simmers with an undertone of anger and accusation that is palpable from the first page to the last. She nevertheless does an excellent job of letting the main figures in this awful story speak for themselves, quoting liberally from all of her sources, balancing bland government press releases against the claims of asylum seekers and whistleblower employees, and documenting each statement in nearly eighty pages of endnotes which allow the reader to follow them up and consider them in their own time.
It's obvious that a huge amount of research and thought has gone into this book. While the vast majority of Gleeson's source material is freely available online, and has been for years in some cases, the real strength of Offshore is the way in which she has managed to arrange excerpts from hundreds of individual reports and testimonies into a coherent and powerful account. By now much of the story is "old news", of course, and many of the names are familiar, some of them for the most heartbreaking reasons: Reza Barati, Abyan, Hamid Khazaei, baby Asha. But by bringing all of the known details together, Gleeson allows each painful fragment of this story to assume even greater significance when viewed against the devastating backdrop of the whole. The quote from David Marr on the book's front cover sums it up perfectly: "I thought I knew this saga but I learned so much. Stray details enter like a knife." In my own case, I understood from the start that I didn't know this story nearly as well as I should, so the "stray details" really did enter like a knife, or like a swirling hailstorm of them. Each page left me feeling as if someone had hit me in the temple with a sledgehammer, and I finished every chapter fighting the urge to vomit from this new understanding of what my country has condoned, still condones, and apparently will condone for years to come.
One thing that emerges particularly clearly from the pages of this book is just how shambolic the policies behind and organisation of Nauru and Manus have been ever since the Gillard government breathed unwanted new life into the corpse of offshore processing. I have struggled for years with the sickening and disheartening realisation that Liberal and Labor hold pretty much indistinguishable views on how to deal with asylum seekers arriving by boat, and Offshore is a timely reminder that both of our major political parties are at fault for the travesty of our tropical detention centres. Given the recent dismissal of Tony Abbott and the notoriety surrounding his party's callous handling of this whole problem, it would have been easy for Gleeson to focus her narrative on the failings of the Coalition and let the book morph into a thinly disguised polemic. Instead, the first 120 pages of Offshore, detailing events from 2011 until the 2013 election, serve not as a perfunctory prologue but as a key part of the story. In these chapters we encounter numerous members of Labor's top brass, from Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd to Ministers for Immigration Brendan O'Connor, Chris Bowen, and Tony Burke spouting the same sort of banal rhetoric and limp (pseudo-)legalese that has spilled all too frequently from the mouths of Abbott, Turnbull, Scott Morrison, and Peter Dutton. With yet another federal election only five weeks away, it is important to remember one of the many valuable lessons of this book: that the ALP and the Coalition are equally culpable of failing the asylum seekers in their care.
No words can properly convey the sadness I feel after reading the litany of negligence, abuse, mismanagement, cruelty (yes, cruelty), and suffering that Gleeson lays out in this book. You might think this is an extreme way to put it, but I can't escape the stark and simple conclusion that, as a country, there is blood on our hands: blood of the violence unleashed by an intentionally coercive system of deterrence, blood that can never be unspilled, and with it, the shards of broken minds, the ruins of battered bodies, and the fragments of shattered souls. As Gleeson stresses, even if the government were to terminate its offshore processing policies tomorrow and bring all asylum seekers to be processed and resettled on Australian soil, there'd be no way to repair the psychological damage done to these people in the years of their illegal incarceration — and if you have any doubt that "illegal" is indeed the right word here, remember that the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea recently declared the Manus detention centre to be just that, following months of United Nations statements to similar effect. Put simply, offshore processing could stop right now, but the harm it has caused will traumatise these asylum seekers for the rest of their lives.
The epigraph at the beginning of this book opens with two of the most enduringly ironic lines from the second stanza of our much-loved national anthem: "For those who've come across the seas / We've boundless plains to share." At first glance, these words might seem like a pointed reprimand of our failure to live up to the values enshrined in the paean that we belt out at every school assembly, sporting event, and remembrance ceremony in our calendar. And they are. But they also serve as a subtle reminder that we need to act according to the ideals that we claim to hold dear. Coupled with the next two lines, they become an urgent plea: "With courage let us all combine / To advance Australia Fair." In writing this book, Madeline Gleeson has shown courage. In speaking up, detainees and whistleblowers from Manus and Nauru have shown courage. In protesting all around the country, medical professionals and refugee advocates have shown courage. In holding on to whatever tattered threads of hope they have left, asylum seekers held in the two detention centres have shown courage. The time has come for the rest of us to do so as well. If we don't show courage, if we don't all combine, then Australia will never be "fair" in any sense of the word. If, knowing full well what has been happening on Manus and Nauru, we fail to take our governments to task, then we have to accept that every tragedy in the detention centres has happened and will happen in our name. Is that really good enough? We could, and should, be better than this: but at the moment we have no right whatsoever to say that we are. How can we make a claim like that, when we sit back and condone — through our silence — physical deprivation, the maddening anguish of uncertainty imposed by a harsh political programme, self-harm born of desperation, numerous allegations of rape, an unpunished murder, a death caused by bureaucratic and medical negligence, the imprisonment of babies? Thanks to books like Offshore, we have more reason than ever to say something, but Australia will never advance unless we do. We need, I think, to take Noni Hazlehurst's advice and (to paraphrase), instead of letting our hearts grow colder than they already are, move forward in a way "that restores our empathy and love for our fellow human beings and the earth, that redefines reality, that heals our hearts". Madeline Gleeson has laid down a vital stepping stone on the path towards that way.
That the vast majority of us seem not to care at all about these men, women, and children probably owes a lot to how effectively our previous two governments have suppressed information about how the detention centres are managed and what it's like to live in them as an asylum seeker trapped in the agonising wait for a future that never comes. Some of our frozen empathy might also be explained by our inability to imagine and insert ourselves into that harsh reality, so far removed from our own that it may as well be happening on another planet. These arguments don't hold much water, if you ask me: in an age where a vast ocean of knowledge laps at our fingertips 24/7, every single one of us, equipped with a brain and enough curiosity, has the ability to investigate, read up on, and think critically about the problems facing our country. Over the past four years, we have all been just a click or turn of the page away from media reports about the conditions on Manus and Nauru. We have all heard at least snippets of the grim stories bravely — illegally — sent or brought home by social workers, security guards, medical staff, and others who keep the detention centres running. We have all now had the chance, or in fact, plenty of chances, to picture ourselves in their shoes, and in the shoes of the desperate people they were employed to care for. Ignorance, then, has never really been a valid excuse for lack of empathy, but the publication of this brilliant new book by Madeline Gleeson has made it a weaker claim than ever before.
Offshore: Behind the wire on Manus and Nauru weaves together information from a vast range of sources to tell the story of Australia's two most (in)famous detention centres since Julia Gillard's Labor government reintroduced offshore processing in 2012. Using newspaper reports, records of parliamentary inquiries, video transcripts, interviews, private communications, official documents released by governments, the UN, and NGOs, and other material, Gleeson presents a detailed narrative of events on Manus and Nauru over the past four years. Like any retelling of real events, it is undeniably selective, and critics of the book will no doubt take issue with Gleeson's representation of certain chaotic incidents, such as the violent disturbances on Nauru and Manus in July 2013 and February 2014, respectively. To her credit, though, Gleeson writes with impressive restraint, in a lucid style that is remarkably free of the emotion that inevitably (and justifiably) seeps into most writing about this issue on both sides of the ideological divide (emotion that I myself find impossible to let go of). This isn't to say that Gleeson writes dispassionately, or without agenda: Offshore simmers with an undertone of anger and accusation that is palpable from the first page to the last. She nevertheless does an excellent job of letting the main figures in this awful story speak for themselves, quoting liberally from all of her sources, balancing bland government press releases against the claims of asylum seekers and whistleblower employees, and documenting each statement in nearly eighty pages of endnotes which allow the reader to follow them up and consider them in their own time.
It's obvious that a huge amount of research and thought has gone into this book. While the vast majority of Gleeson's source material is freely available online, and has been for years in some cases, the real strength of Offshore is the way in which she has managed to arrange excerpts from hundreds of individual reports and testimonies into a coherent and powerful account. By now much of the story is "old news", of course, and many of the names are familiar, some of them for the most heartbreaking reasons: Reza Barati, Abyan, Hamid Khazaei, baby Asha. But by bringing all of the known details together, Gleeson allows each painful fragment of this story to assume even greater significance when viewed against the devastating backdrop of the whole. The quote from David Marr on the book's front cover sums it up perfectly: "I thought I knew this saga but I learned so much. Stray details enter like a knife." In my own case, I understood from the start that I didn't know this story nearly as well as I should, so the "stray details" really did enter like a knife, or like a swirling hailstorm of them. Each page left me feeling as if someone had hit me in the temple with a sledgehammer, and I finished every chapter fighting the urge to vomit from this new understanding of what my country has condoned, still condones, and apparently will condone for years to come.
One thing that emerges particularly clearly from the pages of this book is just how shambolic the policies behind and organisation of Nauru and Manus have been ever since the Gillard government breathed unwanted new life into the corpse of offshore processing. I have struggled for years with the sickening and disheartening realisation that Liberal and Labor hold pretty much indistinguishable views on how to deal with asylum seekers arriving by boat, and Offshore is a timely reminder that both of our major political parties are at fault for the travesty of our tropical detention centres. Given the recent dismissal of Tony Abbott and the notoriety surrounding his party's callous handling of this whole problem, it would have been easy for Gleeson to focus her narrative on the failings of the Coalition and let the book morph into a thinly disguised polemic. Instead, the first 120 pages of Offshore, detailing events from 2011 until the 2013 election, serve not as a perfunctory prologue but as a key part of the story. In these chapters we encounter numerous members of Labor's top brass, from Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd to Ministers for Immigration Brendan O'Connor, Chris Bowen, and Tony Burke spouting the same sort of banal rhetoric and limp (pseudo-)legalese that has spilled all too frequently from the mouths of Abbott, Turnbull, Scott Morrison, and Peter Dutton. With yet another federal election only five weeks away, it is important to remember one of the many valuable lessons of this book: that the ALP and the Coalition are equally culpable of failing the asylum seekers in their care.
No words can properly convey the sadness I feel after reading the litany of negligence, abuse, mismanagement, cruelty (yes, cruelty), and suffering that Gleeson lays out in this book. You might think this is an extreme way to put it, but I can't escape the stark and simple conclusion that, as a country, there is blood on our hands: blood of the violence unleashed by an intentionally coercive system of deterrence, blood that can never be unspilled, and with it, the shards of broken minds, the ruins of battered bodies, and the fragments of shattered souls. As Gleeson stresses, even if the government were to terminate its offshore processing policies tomorrow and bring all asylum seekers to be processed and resettled on Australian soil, there'd be no way to repair the psychological damage done to these people in the years of their illegal incarceration — and if you have any doubt that "illegal" is indeed the right word here, remember that the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea recently declared the Manus detention centre to be just that, following months of United Nations statements to similar effect. Put simply, offshore processing could stop right now, but the harm it has caused will traumatise these asylum seekers for the rest of their lives.
The epigraph at the beginning of this book opens with two of the most enduringly ironic lines from the second stanza of our much-loved national anthem: "For those who've come across the seas / We've boundless plains to share." At first glance, these words might seem like a pointed reprimand of our failure to live up to the values enshrined in the paean that we belt out at every school assembly, sporting event, and remembrance ceremony in our calendar. And they are. But they also serve as a subtle reminder that we need to act according to the ideals that we claim to hold dear. Coupled with the next two lines, they become an urgent plea: "With courage let us all combine / To advance Australia Fair." In writing this book, Madeline Gleeson has shown courage. In speaking up, detainees and whistleblowers from Manus and Nauru have shown courage. In protesting all around the country, medical professionals and refugee advocates have shown courage. In holding on to whatever tattered threads of hope they have left, asylum seekers held in the two detention centres have shown courage. The time has come for the rest of us to do so as well. If we don't show courage, if we don't all combine, then Australia will never be "fair" in any sense of the word. If, knowing full well what has been happening on Manus and Nauru, we fail to take our governments to task, then we have to accept that every tragedy in the detention centres has happened and will happen in our name. Is that really good enough? We could, and should, be better than this: but at the moment we have no right whatsoever to say that we are. How can we make a claim like that, when we sit back and condone — through our silence — physical deprivation, the maddening anguish of uncertainty imposed by a harsh political programme, self-harm born of desperation, numerous allegations of rape, an unpunished murder, a death caused by bureaucratic and medical negligence, the imprisonment of babies? Thanks to books like Offshore, we have more reason than ever to say something, but Australia will never advance unless we do. We need, I think, to take Noni Hazlehurst's advice and (to paraphrase), instead of letting our hearts grow colder than they already are, move forward in a way "that restores our empathy and love for our fellow human beings and the earth, that redefines reality, that heals our hearts". Madeline Gleeson has laid down a vital stepping stone on the path towards that way.
June 23, 2020
A thorough examination of the offshore detention regime by the Australian government on the islands of Manus in PNG, and Nauru, repeatedly reportedly used to attempt to manage the numbers of people arriving by boat on our shores seeking asylum, and act as a deterrent. The political bipartisanship, the buck passing of responsibility, and the dire indefinite nature of this policy is reviewed chronologically, with each shocking revelation laid as bare as public record and knowledge allows.
The policy that re-started the practice of shipping people arriving by boat to Australian shores to remote islands, the horrid conditions, the riots on both Nauru and Manus, the 2 deaths on Manus (without the coronial inquest outcome of one, and also written and published before the next 11 deaths within the regime), the mistreatment of children throughout the process of detention, the lies after lies after lies, the systemic medical neglect, the reported and known abuse inside the gates, the misinformation to the people detained and the Australian public. This book outlines so much to be utterly ashamed of as Australians.
This names names of the political players who made this system what it is, and outlines the bipartisanship. The Nauru 9 story, being the false accusations made toward Save The Children staff, and the individual stories of medical evacuation needs, are detailed.
It's hard for me to rate this, as it's too close for me. I am disappointed that more of the evidence from the Senate Inquiries, and more of the voices of those held, were not included. There were just a couple of small details that I think were incorrect, and several details of some of the most damning revelations missing, but much of the content was outlined .
As someone who worked in the camp in a "welfare" role on Nauru, this is a good summary of the issues, grave concerns, lack of accountability and transparency, surreal nature of operations, we were all witness to. As one former worker mentioned in this book, it's hard to talk about what we saw now, because people don't really believe how bad it is/was. This is a compulsory read for anyone who wants a window into the world of Australia's offshore detention.
I was resistant to reading this, because I knew it would bring up a lot of the unresolved guilt, sadness, anger and disbelief at what I witnessed over there, and it has. The curiosity about how things were discussed and portrayed, and the scope of voices of those who experienced - and are still experiencing- these policies, got the better of me. This is at least a lasting record of events out there for people to know what happened, and is still happening.
Read this, Behrouz Boochani's book about Manus, and perhaps The Undesirables by Mark Isaac, for a growing understanding of this blight on Australian humanity. Until one day more people held under these conditions can tell their own stories.
The policy that re-started the practice of shipping people arriving by boat to Australian shores to remote islands, the horrid conditions, the riots on both Nauru and Manus, the 2 deaths on Manus (without the coronial inquest outcome of one, and also written and published before the next 11 deaths within the regime), the mistreatment of children throughout the process of detention, the lies after lies after lies, the systemic medical neglect, the reported and known abuse inside the gates, the misinformation to the people detained and the Australian public. This book outlines so much to be utterly ashamed of as Australians.
This names names of the political players who made this system what it is, and outlines the bipartisanship. The Nauru 9 story, being the false accusations made toward Save The Children staff, and the individual stories of medical evacuation needs, are detailed.
It's hard for me to rate this, as it's too close for me. I am disappointed that more of the evidence from the Senate Inquiries, and more of the voices of those held, were not included. There were just a couple of small details that I think were incorrect, and several details of some of the most damning revelations missing, but much of the content was outlined .
As someone who worked in the camp in a "welfare" role on Nauru, this is a good summary of the issues, grave concerns, lack of accountability and transparency, surreal nature of operations, we were all witness to. As one former worker mentioned in this book, it's hard to talk about what we saw now, because people don't really believe how bad it is/was. This is a compulsory read for anyone who wants a window into the world of Australia's offshore detention.
I was resistant to reading this, because I knew it would bring up a lot of the unresolved guilt, sadness, anger and disbelief at what I witnessed over there, and it has. The curiosity about how things were discussed and portrayed, and the scope of voices of those who experienced - and are still experiencing- these policies, got the better of me. This is at least a lasting record of events out there for people to know what happened, and is still happening.
Read this, Behrouz Boochani's book about Manus, and perhaps The Undesirables by Mark Isaac, for a growing understanding of this blight on Australian humanity. Until one day more people held under these conditions can tell their own stories.
January 14, 2021
One of our greatest national shames.
Offshore is a heavily detailed multi-positional account of Australia’s offshore processing centres in Nauru and Manus Island. It includes the politics behind it all and accounts from whistleblowers especially doctors and welfare officers.
It is unfathomable that asylum-seekers are treated so atrociously. A main theme is that the site is a human dump zone where no authorities take responsibility. For years no-one was even processed at all. The agencies involved are legally forbidden from disclosing anything. The asylum-seekers have no legal representation and insufficient facilities, living in leaking tents with no security. There are an alarming number of reported rapes and gang rapes by staff and fellow asylum-seekers. The victims are not separated and are thrust straight back into the commune with no justice served. They are treated like criminals and have no ability to be assessed.
It is a travesty that the authorities claim to have no evidence of many of the complaints. It also works in their favour as complaints are dismissed.
The book is thorough and well researched. The average rating I have given is due to it feeling like it took a long time to read. I also feel like I didn’t get a handle on what the proper process ‘should’ have been. I would have benefited from an introduction that summarised international law so that I could know what obligations were meant to have been met.
Offshore is a heavily detailed multi-positional account of Australia’s offshore processing centres in Nauru and Manus Island. It includes the politics behind it all and accounts from whistleblowers especially doctors and welfare officers.
It is unfathomable that asylum-seekers are treated so atrociously. A main theme is that the site is a human dump zone where no authorities take responsibility. For years no-one was even processed at all. The agencies involved are legally forbidden from disclosing anything. The asylum-seekers have no legal representation and insufficient facilities, living in leaking tents with no security. There are an alarming number of reported rapes and gang rapes by staff and fellow asylum-seekers. The victims are not separated and are thrust straight back into the commune with no justice served. They are treated like criminals and have no ability to be assessed.
It is a travesty that the authorities claim to have no evidence of many of the complaints. It also works in their favour as complaints are dismissed.
The book is thorough and well researched. The average rating I have given is due to it feeling like it took a long time to read. I also feel like I didn’t get a handle on what the proper process ‘should’ have been. I would have benefited from an introduction that summarised international law so that I could know what obligations were meant to have been met.
February 5, 2017
Gleeson is a fantastic writer, lawyer and researcher. This important investigation into the second wave of offshore processing from 2013-2016 uses a wide range of sources to show beyond doubt that the policy of offshore processing does not work and harms the asylum seekers that are subjected to it. It is meticulously documented, with research relying on a wide range of sources, including a large number of senate inquiries and incident reports from case-workers and doctors on Nauru and Manus. This book is particularly valuable as a record, because polarised debate and secrecy surrounding offshore detention has created much confusion about the conditions offshore. Now we cannot say we did not know what we were doing to asylum seekers in offshore detention.
January 15, 2018
Everyone who lives in Australia should read this book
May 21, 2017
Like a lot of history-book enthusiasts, I tend to imagine, when reading, what could have been done to avert atrocities or disaster if only the protagonists knew what we do now. Reading Gleeson's book can be an emotionally difficult experience because while this reads like many histories of barbaric events, in this case, the events are still occurring, and the decisions are being taken largely in my own home town. Gleeson eschews a polemical or opinion based tone for this book, choosing instead to let her research speak for itself. The result is devastating: a tale of political expediency which has led to the ongoing abuse and effective torture of thousands of people, now stranded with little hope of recovery, or even a cessation of abuse. Perhaps worst of all, as Gleeson points out, this record is constructed from publicly available sources. While some minor details are debated - and Gleeson details who says what in even-handed clarity - most is not. Gleeson gives space to explaining the motivations and reasoning of different politicians at different times for establishing, consolidating and extending this expensive persecution of boat people, but it is increasingly clear that trying to present this point of view requires a truckload of self-control, given it's narrowness in the face of damage.
Like many Australians, I tend to follow the news on this topic, and much of the book was not new to me. But as David Marr says on the book's cover, it is in the details that the knife is turned: one such, for example, is the revelation that the ALP government deliberately chose the youngest looking eligible children to send to Nauru, as they wanted images of small children being led away. The various protests and riots and site-invasions on Manus are also easy to keep straight in a well-constructed narrative.
Gleeson towards the end of the book points to the dilemma at the heart of the refugees' plight: that the worse their mental health gets, the more desperate that population, the easier it is for the government to paint them as deserving of a brutal jail, and too unstable to join society. Nauru and Manus are not just holding pens, they are strategies to blow up the hopes and dreams of the asylum seekers who end up there. The 'deterrence' strategy relies on the deliberate instillation of despair and hopelessness in the population. Any mental health professional can identify that this, more than anything else, predicts severe mental degradation. And yet, this is punitively imposed on men, women, teenagers, children and infants.
My main criticism of the book is simply that Gleeson doesn't spend more time looking at the claims that the policy has been an effective deterrent. Given that its entire purpose is justified in sacrificing the few to save the many, the basis for that claim seems relevant to the material in the book.
I'm not under the illusion that many of those who support offshore detention will read this book: our country is far too polarised for that these days. But it is a shame, as Gleeson does not indulge in insult or cheap dismissiveness, and the information is rich and detailed. I can hope that, with the closure of the Manus centre in sight, the dialogue around this will start to change.
Like many Australians, I tend to follow the news on this topic, and much of the book was not new to me. But as David Marr says on the book's cover, it is in the details that the knife is turned: one such, for example, is the revelation that the ALP government deliberately chose the youngest looking eligible children to send to Nauru, as they wanted images of small children being led away. The various protests and riots and site-invasions on Manus are also easy to keep straight in a well-constructed narrative.
Gleeson towards the end of the book points to the dilemma at the heart of the refugees' plight: that the worse their mental health gets, the more desperate that population, the easier it is for the government to paint them as deserving of a brutal jail, and too unstable to join society. Nauru and Manus are not just holding pens, they are strategies to blow up the hopes and dreams of the asylum seekers who end up there. The 'deterrence' strategy relies on the deliberate instillation of despair and hopelessness in the population. Any mental health professional can identify that this, more than anything else, predicts severe mental degradation. And yet, this is punitively imposed on men, women, teenagers, children and infants.
My main criticism of the book is simply that Gleeson doesn't spend more time looking at the claims that the policy has been an effective deterrent. Given that its entire purpose is justified in sacrificing the few to save the many, the basis for that claim seems relevant to the material in the book.
I'm not under the illusion that many of those who support offshore detention will read this book: our country is far too polarised for that these days. But it is a shame, as Gleeson does not indulge in insult or cheap dismissiveness, and the information is rich and detailed. I can hope that, with the closure of the Manus centre in sight, the dialogue around this will start to change.
July 21, 2022
This is a brutal read. Not for the faint of heart but fot the truthseekers. Those keen to finally find out what has really been going on in offshore detention.
This book is very well researched and strikes a good balance between discussing Nauru and Manus Island, in addition to painting the broader picture. In journalistic fashion, it aims to describe more than advocate and leaves opinion forming to the reader. It is clear that there will always be large gaps in our understanding, due to the level of suppressed information though. Even those of us who were there only got to see the tip of the rotten iceberg.
The contrast between what was communicated by the government at the time and what was later revealed is often great, and the author leaves the reader to speculate as to why that may be. Personally, I believe there was both a difference in interpretation due to differing agendas and politics, and because there were so many deliberate hurdles in communication, in systems etc. I personally believe this was on purpose because it's so much easier to pretend you have no idea if you deliberately look away.
One thing that could have been underlined more in my opinion, is the ways in which Abbott, Morrisson and Dutton would deliberately play the media. There's a reason the TPV message was released to people in detention just before footy grand final weekend. There's also a reason that days after news about the uproar it caused, some of which still made the news, suddenly 10 Save the Children workers were stood down out of nowhere based on conveniently fabricated allegations. Suddenly, there were new headlines, undermining the credibility of anyone who had the guts to speak out. And just in case, if that wasn't enough, new laws were passed making it possible for whistleblowers to be thrown in jail for speaking up about what was going on or saying anything that didn't agree with the coalition's political agenda.
Where the book ends is not where the torture ends, and plenty more horrible things have happened since. There have also been more deaths than got mentioned here.
So yes... this book will outrage you, and make you sad for those suffering through the things it describes, and so it should. It confirms you're human. And it might change how you view Australia's political landscape, as it did for me when I lived through some of it. And in doing so there's also an element of healing through acknowledgement. Of seeing with open eyes and choosing to want things to be different. It is time.
This book is very well researched and strikes a good balance between discussing Nauru and Manus Island, in addition to painting the broader picture. In journalistic fashion, it aims to describe more than advocate and leaves opinion forming to the reader. It is clear that there will always be large gaps in our understanding, due to the level of suppressed information though. Even those of us who were there only got to see the tip of the rotten iceberg.
The contrast between what was communicated by the government at the time and what was later revealed is often great, and the author leaves the reader to speculate as to why that may be. Personally, I believe there was both a difference in interpretation due to differing agendas and politics, and because there were so many deliberate hurdles in communication, in systems etc. I personally believe this was on purpose because it's so much easier to pretend you have no idea if you deliberately look away.
One thing that could have been underlined more in my opinion, is the ways in which Abbott, Morrisson and Dutton would deliberately play the media. There's a reason the TPV message was released to people in detention just before footy grand final weekend. There's also a reason that days after news about the uproar it caused, some of which still made the news, suddenly 10 Save the Children workers were stood down out of nowhere based on conveniently fabricated allegations. Suddenly, there were new headlines, undermining the credibility of anyone who had the guts to speak out. And just in case, if that wasn't enough, new laws were passed making it possible for whistleblowers to be thrown in jail for speaking up about what was going on or saying anything that didn't agree with the coalition's political agenda.
Where the book ends is not where the torture ends, and plenty more horrible things have happened since. There have also been more deaths than got mentioned here.
So yes... this book will outrage you, and make you sad for those suffering through the things it describes, and so it should. It confirms you're human. And it might change how you view Australia's political landscape, as it did for me when I lived through some of it. And in doing so there's also an element of healing through acknowledgement. Of seeing with open eyes and choosing to want things to be different. It is time.
April 20, 2017
Refugees, asylum seekers and offshore processing has polarised politics and opinion in Australia for several years now. A book like this, that attempts to provide an 'uncompromising' overview that 'gets behind the rumours and allegations to reveal what is known' will probably only be read by those already convinced that there has to be a better way to manage the perceived crisis in asylum seekers.
Gleeson has put together a thoughtful, cohesive and detailed document. Her anger and frustration at the living conditions on Manus and Nauru and the uncertainty around processing individual claims is palpable. Yet Offshore still offers the reader opposing ideas, contradictory evidence and controversial opinions in an attempt to provide a balanced argument.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/20...
Gleeson has put together a thoughtful, cohesive and detailed document. Her anger and frustration at the living conditions on Manus and Nauru and the uncertainty around processing individual claims is palpable. Yet Offshore still offers the reader opposing ideas, contradictory evidence and controversial opinions in an attempt to provide a balanced argument.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/20...
September 25, 2019
This is a niche book. Because it is such a specific topic that only a limited audience will pursue in the depth provided by this book it doesn’t really matter if I found it a 1 or 5 star book. To me it was LONG. Why did I read it? I am working on a challenge to read a book from every country in the world. This year I am tackling every equatorial country and Nauru is equatorial and the smallest country in the world. I was envisioning a Pacific island paradise - Not so. Nauru seems to be more akin to an abandoned phosphate mine; an island Australia has contracted with to detain asylum seekers landing on their shores. As an American it was a compelling read as it describes Australian policies and their consequences that seem remarkably parallel to our recent detention policies of refugees seeking asylum on our borders. Basically, Australia’s off-shoring policy seems ineffective, unbelievably expensive, cruel, inhumane and disastrous to those affected by it - and that includes the workers pushed to uphold these horrific policies and detention centers.
July 8, 2016
I have been a passionate believer in refugee rights since early high school. The treatment of refugees by our government, successive governments, has been abhorrent since the Tampa crisis (as far as I can remember and have read about). But I had very little idea of just how bad things were on Manus Island and Nauru. This book was simultaneously enlightening and disturbing and a call to action for the Australian public to do something about this and make our politicians (on both sides) care. 'Offshore' should be required reading for every Australian.
March 9, 2017
A comprehensive and unflinching explanation of the offshore processing of asylum seekers (re)implemented in 2012. It is tough to read but important, and Gleeson has made it a bit easier to get through by focusing on facts & evidence and letting them speak mostly for themselves. It was an important reminder of things that have happened in this space in the past five years, and pulled together chronologically like this is seriously damning.
March 14, 2021
Shocking. Every Australian should read this book
October 9, 2021
Great read and very eye opening to the truths of Australia's off-shore processing. A must read for every Australian.
February 7, 2018
Wow. Thsi book is intense &incredibly sad, with a clear villain, the Australian govt & the victims- asylum seekers looking for a better life, away from war & violence.
I knew a lot of this, but not all of it & bringing the information together like this, instead of read piece meal in newspaper articles, means you can understand the timeline of events & elections.
It covers the preventable death of Reza Barati, killed during a riot & the death of another man a short time later from a leg infection. It has the story of the Cambodia deal & a long litany of rapes & child abuse on Nauru. There was a place in Manus known as the rape dungeon. It explains how an entire surgical team was sent to Nauru rather than allow one 11 year old boy to return to Aust for surgery- oh they'll all be breaking their arms if we allow him to return.
It's worse than Guantanamo bay, at least they may have been criminals. This policy is all about deterrence for others & it's sickening. Oh no gotta send kids to offshore detention as all the boats will be filled with kids otherwise. Gotta send heavily pregnant women over, gotta send sick people over.
It makes me sick & I was especially upset by the authors conclusion, stating here are the facts, it's up to you Australia, there's another election (there was) coming up but it was a non-issue. people don't care. It seems that most don't.
Those kids are still on Nauru, the men still on Manus. Eventually, major cases will be brought, freedom of information requests will bring the dept memo's to light, they will be the Refugee stolen generation & it will be too little, too damn late.
I read this very quickly over 3 days & I've been in a terrible mood, after reading for a few hours I just sat in my room staring at the wall. It'll make you feel like punching something, or going & standing outside the dept of immi with a sign saying 'you are assholes'. It makes me want to get a bomb & blow up parliament, so imagine how it would make u feel if it was your mother harassed, your sister raped, your father emasculated? Australia is creating a debt that only be paid back with revenge. & I'm a bloody pacifist.
I knew a lot of this, but not all of it & bringing the information together like this, instead of read piece meal in newspaper articles, means you can understand the timeline of events & elections.
It covers the preventable death of Reza Barati, killed during a riot & the death of another man a short time later from a leg infection. It has the story of the Cambodia deal & a long litany of rapes & child abuse on Nauru. There was a place in Manus known as the rape dungeon. It explains how an entire surgical team was sent to Nauru rather than allow one 11 year old boy to return to Aust for surgery- oh they'll all be breaking their arms if we allow him to return.
It's worse than Guantanamo bay, at least they may have been criminals. This policy is all about deterrence for others & it's sickening. Oh no gotta send kids to offshore detention as all the boats will be filled with kids otherwise. Gotta send heavily pregnant women over, gotta send sick people over.
It makes me sick & I was especially upset by the authors conclusion, stating here are the facts, it's up to you Australia, there's another election (there was) coming up but it was a non-issue. people don't care. It seems that most don't.
Those kids are still on Nauru, the men still on Manus. Eventually, major cases will be brought, freedom of information requests will bring the dept memo's to light, they will be the Refugee stolen generation & it will be too little, too damn late.
I read this very quickly over 3 days & I've been in a terrible mood, after reading for a few hours I just sat in my room staring at the wall. It'll make you feel like punching something, or going & standing outside the dept of immi with a sign saying 'you are assholes'. It makes me want to get a bomb & blow up parliament, so imagine how it would make u feel if it was your mother harassed, your sister raped, your father emasculated? Australia is creating a debt that only be paid back with revenge. & I'm a bloody pacifist.
May 31, 2019
A damning account of Australia's regime of offshore processing from the Labor government to the successive Coalition government. A recommended read, especially for those who think that the policy of offshore detention and processing that Australia has in relation to asylum seekers and refugees is humane.
"What we need now are answers and then, somehow, an exit strategy: a way to resolve the mistakes of the past, repair the harm that has been done, and finally develop a sustainable, effective and humane immigration policy." - Madeline Gleeson
"What we need now are answers and then, somehow, an exit strategy: a way to resolve the mistakes of the past, repair the harm that has been done, and finally develop a sustainable, effective and humane immigration policy." - Madeline Gleeson
June 8, 2018
Incredible research, brilliantly written. Gleeson's book on Manus and Nauru should be required reading for all Australians. Well-referenced and far-reaching in its scope, 'Offshore' pulls together the piles of journalism and reports on Nauru and Manus that drip through to us daily, giving us the whole picture. Thank you for this invaluable resource.
March 6, 2017
This made me angry and ashamed by turns. The subject is so important that it's difficult to be objective, but Gleeson's writing is meticulously researched and compelling without being emotive.
June 21, 2023
One of the best books on the first few years of offshore detention.
March 17, 2017
'Offshore' by Madeline Gleeson successfully ties together the snippets of information emerging from Australia's offshore detention facilities and government and media statements. This is a harrowing, and embarrassing, book written without hyperbole or aggression. This should be on every Australian's reading list.
May 2, 2017
An absolute must-read for all Australians. Gleeson presents the cold hard facts of our offshore detention system, and clarifies exactly what our government has done to asylum seekers and why. In the face of a system that treats vulnerable people so cruelly, it is our responsibility to face and witness it, and Gleeson has crafted a wonderful tool for us all the educate ourselves.
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January 19, 2018I had to read this book one slow, devastating section a day, pacing myself as the torrent of misery that Australia engages in would be overwhelming otherwise. A shameful book about our shameful treatment of fellow humans who seek basic shelter and a home where they are not in constant fear. Australia has turned its back on the world. With our track record we better hope we stay a peaceful nation. No country in the world would take Aussies as refugees- and they’d be quite right. We are failing the nationhood test, breaking international law and receiving countless sanctions by the UN. I thought thought that was something reserved for dictatorships, not my home country. Should be mandatory reading for all Australians. If we got fired up enough maybe we could change policy? I reckon we have to replace the career pollies who only care about point scoring. I’m so riled up.
In summary: book will make you angry, sad and ashamed to be Australian
In summary: book will make you angry, sad and ashamed to be Australian
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