[12][13] University of Sydney immigration law specialist Professor Mary Crock says that Australia's history of offshore processing goes back to the 1960s, when Manus Island was set up to take refugees from West Papua.

[citation needed] Aladdin Sisalem, a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian, fled Kuwait in 2000 and in December 2002 arrived at an island in the Torres Strait where he claimed asylum, and was sent to the Manus centre.

[7] In July 2013, shortly after Kevin Rudd returned as prime minister for a second time, the government announced that boat arrivals would never be allowed to resettle in Australia.

[18] After the Liberal/National coalition won the federal election on 7 September 2013, Tony Abbott was sworn in as Prime Minister,[19] and Operation Sovereign Borders came into effect, reinforcing the policy of no maritime arrivals being resettled in Australia.

[28] Cornall had previously conducted an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse at the Manus Regional Processing Centre,[30] his report being presented to the Department in September 2013.

[28][31] On 24 August 2014, 24-year-old Iranian asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei sought medical treatment at the detention centre's clinic for an infected wound after cutting his foot.

[36] In March 2015, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was "sick of being lectured" by the UN over Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, reiterating that its policy saves lives at sea.

[42] Details were not made public, but the US would determine the total number of refugees it would take, eligible applicants still needing to clear US authorities' "extreme vetting" procedures.

[52] A notice posted during the night by PNG Immigration authorities said "The Manus RPC will close at 5 pm today" (31 October), and that all power, water and food supply would cease.

Human rights advocates hailed the decision, with one calling it a "tipping point as a country", with the weight of public opinion believing that sick people need treatment.

[68] In early June, prominent refugee and advocate Abdul Aziz Muhamat was granted asylum in Switzerland, four months after flying there to receive the Martin Ennals award (see below).

[69] After escalating incidents of attempted suicide and self-harm (by 13 June Boochani had reported 50 on the island and in Port Moresby) Chief Inspector David Yapu of PNG police and the governor of the Manus Province, Charlie Benjamin, called for the Australian Government to step in and deal with the remaining men (more than 570 as of February).

[74] The Australian government reported that as of 30 September total numbers of asylum seekers left in PNG and Nauru was 562 (23 percent of the peak, in June 2014), and another 1,117 people had been "temporarily transferred to Australia for medical treatment or as accompanying family members".

[12] On 15 October, a 32-year-old Afghan refugee and doctor, Sayed Mirwais Rohani, jumped to his death from the 22nd floor of a Brisbane hotel, after suffering from acute mental distress.

While the decision to end the offshore detention program was welcomed by Amnesty International and other human rights, refugee advocate groups and Boochani, the uncertainty of the men's futures and the way that the government had handed over responsibility to PNG was criticised.

[99] In March 2020, Home Affairs told the Senate estimates committee that "211 refugees and asylum seekers remained on Nauru, 228 in Papua New Guinea, and about 1,220, including their dependents, were in Australia to receive medical treatment".

[100] There were around 100–140 men remaining in October 2021, when responsibility for their welfare was taken over by PNG, after the rest had either been resettled in the United States or Canada, returned to their home countries, or been transferred to Australia.

[8] In January 2018 home affairs minister Peter Dutton refused an order from the Senate to release documents relating to the health, construction and security services for Manus.

[106] In February 2019, the Australian government extended its contract with Paladin, promising an extra $109 million, to provide maintenance and other services to the East Lorengau Transit Centre.

Australian Home Affairs Secretary, Michael Pezzullo, said that the tender had required a tight turnaround after PNG unexpectedly withdrew its provision of service in July.

Workers were asked to write reports for clients they had not seen, compromising their professional integrity, and there were also complaints about outstanding pay, poor staff treatment, and workplace conditions.

[113] The Secrecy and Disclosure Provisions of the 1 July 2015 Australian Border Force Act ruled that workers who spoke of any incidents from within one of the centres would receive a 2-year prison sentence.

[121] The virtual reality project Inside Manus, commissioned by SBS VR[122] and directed by Lucas Taylor, premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2017.

[125] Boochani also collaborated with Iranian-born Melbourne photographer Hoda Afshar on a two-channel video work, Remain, which includes spoken poetry by him and Iranian poet Bijan Elahi.

It relates some of the stories of their lives in Iran, their trip in leaky boats from Indonesia and their experiences in detention, including details of the 2014 riot and killing of Reza Barati.

It was performed in Tehran in February–March 2017, running for a month in the Qashqai Hall of the City Theatre Complex and attended by nearly 3000 people,[133] including Abbas Araghchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, and Australian diplomats.

The playwright Sahamizadeh said it was performed there as a part of its international tour to express compassion and solidarity with Rohingya refugees from Myanmar who had sought protection in Bangladesh recently.

[141] The author writes about ethnic tensions, claiming that the unrest was mostly fomented by Iranian detainees, and of the violent riots of 2014 (in which two security guards were implicated but never brought to justice in the murder of Reza Barati), when he was working as a member of the Emergency Response Team.

He has written a song entitled "The Big Exhale" and released a video (made with the collaboration of Melbourne City Ballet) on YouTube and audio on Wantok Music in June 2019.

[143][144][145] A short (13-minute) documentary film entitled Manus made by artist and refugee advocate Angus McDonald was released in 2019, about the stand-off when the facility was closed at the end of 2017.