Rakib says he has spent 2.5 years on Nauru without the ability to work, and the cost of a single banana has climbed from $1.50 to about $4. On Naoero, that leaves him and many others trying to stretch a $260 fortnightly payment across food, water and internet while basic prices keep moving away from them.
A new survey by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre found that most refugees and asylum seekers held in Nauru’s detention centres cannot afford enough food or clean drinking water. The survey covered 78 people between February and April, and all but one said the Australian government’s $260 fortnightly payment was not enough to keep them from going hungry.
Rakib and Nauru prices
Rakib said there had recently been a shortage of rice on Nauru, and he said it might take two to three months for the next ship with rice to arrive. He told a translator that, in that gap, the pressure feels unbearable: “I think it would be better if they kill us, or if we die.” He added: “Because, you know, like when you die, you get peace.”
The payment is meant to cover food, drinking water, supplies, phone credit and internet service, but the minimum 28GB monthly data plan with Digicel costs $112. On an island of about 13,000 people where more than 90% of food is imported, the price of vegetables such as tomatoes, capsicums and onions sits at about $18 a kilo, far above what the allowance can comfortably cover.
Australia spending on Naoero
Australia spent $971.6m on offshore management for unauthorised maritime arrivals in the 2025-26 financial year, a figure that works out to about $9.6m per person. MTC Australia will receive $791.2m over five years to operate the offshore processing centre on Nauru, with a further $106.5m to be paid over three years.
That spending sits beside a much smaller sum reaching detainees directly. The result is a gap between the scale of Australia’s offshore system and the day-to-day support people on Nauru say they receive, especially when food is imported and arrivals at the island’s processing centre remain in limbo.
What happens on Nauru
More than 100 people are still awaiting processing on Nauru, most of them from China, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Under a longstanding bipartisan government policy, they will never be permanently resettled in Australia, so the immediate issue for them is not a short stay but how long they can keep buying food, water and the basics before the next shipment arrives.
Rakib’s account turns the numbers into a daily calculation: less rice, higher prices, no work, and a payment that disappears quickly once internet access and imported groceries are counted. The next pressure point is the rice shipment he says could take two to three months, while the broader question is how much of Australia’s offshore spending ever reaches detainees as direct living support rather than administration and contractor costs.
