Seventy-seven out of 78 asylum seekers surveyed on Nauru say the Australian government's $260 fortnightly living allowance is not enough to prevent hunger, according to a new report by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre that lays bare the arithmetic of survival on the island.

The ASRC's report, Hungry For Freedom, surveyed 78 people between February and April 2026. The findings, published on July 20, paint a picture of a system where the basic support payment is structurally inadequate against Nauru's cost of living — and where the gap is not marginal. The $260 a fortnight is meant to cover food, drinking water, supplies, phone credit, and internet service. Every category of that budget is under pressure (The Guardian).

Think of the budget like a household ledger where the fixed costs eat the page before groceries get a look-in. Nauru's main telco, Digicel, charges $112 a month for its minimum 28GB data plan. That is roughly 20% of the monthly allowance gone before a single meal is purchased. Then there is the food. Nauru has a population of about 13,000 and imports more than 90% of what it consumes. Tomatoes, capsicums and onions run around $18 a kilogram — up to three times Australian prices. A single banana has gone from $1.50 to roughly $4 in recent months, according to one detainee. A rice shortage on the island has meant waiting two to three months for a resupply ship to dock.

The people on the receiving end of this arrangement are asylum seekers, mostly from China, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, who attempted to reach Australia by boat after 2023. Under the bipartisan policy that has governed offshore processing since its revival, they will never be permanently resettled in Australia — even if their refugee claims are recognised as genuine. Offshore processing, in plain terms, is the practice of holding people who arrive by boat at facilities outside Australia, in this case on Nauru, rather than processing their claims on the mainland. The centre on Nauru was empty in mid-2023 but has since held roughly 100 people as a new stream of boat arrivals resumed transfers.

What gives the ASRC's findings their particular sting is the cost ledger on the other side of the equation. Home Affairs portfolio budget statements released in May 2026 show the Australian government spent $971.6 million on offshore management for unauthorised maritime arrivals in the 2025-26 financial year. Spread across roughly 100 people on Nauru, that is approximately $9.6 million per person. The contrast between that figure and a $260-a-fortnight food allowance is the kind of detail that invites scrutiny of what the offshore processing regime is actually delivering for the money being poured into it (The Guardian).

The financial architecture underpinning the arrangement has also drawn attention in Parliament. A submission to an Australian parliamentary inquiry, dated July 17, states that a recently signed deal to deport refugees and people seeking asylum to Nauru cost taxpayers $2.5 billion. A separate submission from February 2026 references a 2025 agreement between the Australian government and Nauru covering government payments for offshore detention. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee has been conducting an inquiry into offshore processing on Nauru and in Papua New Guinea, with Chapter 5 of its report specifically examining the costs associated with the regional processing centres (Parliamentary submission, 17 July 2026; Parliamentary submission, 13 February 2026).

ASRC deputy chief executive Jana Favero did not mince words. The report's findings showed the offshore detention system was "completely broken," she said (The Guardian).

The broader context here is that offshore processing has always been sold to the Australian public on deterrence grounds — the price tag justified by the argument that keeping boats from arriving is worth whatever it costs. That rationale has held across changes of government. What the ASRC survey does is shift the lens from the headline spending to what life on the receiving end actually looks like, and whether the support provided to people held on Nauru meets any reasonable standard of adequacy. When 99% of a surveyed cohort report they cannot access enough food on the allowance provided, and when a basic data plan consumes a fifth of that allowance, the question of whether the system is functioning as intended — in any sense beyond deterrence — is one the committee inquiry will have to confront.

The government's position has long been that offshore processing is necessary, expensive, and non-negotiable. The figures in the ASRC report do not contest that frame. They simply make the cost of the arrangement visible at the level of a single banana.