Funding of empty detention centre in Australia

Australia’s controversial detention centre on Nauru is empty, after the last remaining refugee was evacuated into the night last week. Despite the facility sitting vacant, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government will spend vast sums of money including A$486m (£255m; $320m) this year to keep Nauru open as a deterrent. It pauses over a decade of Australia’s processing of asylum seekers on the tiny Pacific nation, with 4,183 people held there since 2012. Offshore processing – which involves detaining people in the Pacific while they await resettlement in a third country – remains one of Australia’s most enduring policies. Are the empty detentions aimed at protecting the country against Asylum seekers ?