Or are they being told there is no hope regardless of their circumstances.
This might interest some...it's from an article in this weeks Guardian - the RED one 
http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2014/1628/01-manus-island-attacks.html
How did we get to this point?
Ms Bokal broke the confidentiality conditions of her contract by revealing what happened last week, and thereby sacrificed her job. She now expects prosecution by the government.
Before she arrived on Manus Island she supported offshore processing, but now advocates the immediate closure of Manus Island and Nauru. The Manus Island conditions are truly horrific, with unbearable heat, malnutrition and outbreaks of disease. The only relief for detainees with dental problems is extraction of affected teeth by a local resident.
About 1,350 men have been detained there, some since late 2012. They are rarely let out. When they are, they can’t even go for a swim to relieve the heat, because of crocodiles. Mental depression is endemic.
Ms Bokal stated: “I would rather die than live in the camp”.
When she arrived on Manus Island she was puzzled by the detainees’ silence. Then she learned they had been warned that any “trouble-maker” who objected to the conditions or complained about mental or physical health problems would forfeit the right to legal advice and be put into isolation, and his application for asylum would not be processed.
However, after the official address those warnings lost their repressive effect, with explosive and tragic results. A group of former Salvation Army staff who had been stationed on the Island described last week’s events as “an inevitable outcome of a cruel and degrading policy”.
Settlement in Australia is now forbidden to any asylum seeker who attempts to reach Australia by boat. Settlement in Papua New Guinea is their only option, but its capital, Port Moresby, the most law-abiding place in the country, has been classified as the third most dangerous city on earth.
The UN Refugee Convention requires signatories like Australia to give asylum seekers legal protection. However, Australian law does not apply in Papua New Guinea or Nauru, both of which teetered on the brink of legal and social breakdown last year.
Since it accepted the current arrangement last year the Papua New Guinea government has not processed a single application for asylum.
Indeed, it has a financial interest in not doing so, because of Australia’s payment for the Manus Island centre.
There is little chance of the asylum seekers being accepted by PNG citizens, because of cultural differences and the widespread belief that the detainees are getting a better deal than them. The government is well aware of all this but has nevertheless enforced the offshore processing policy.
It is a huge issue because of the secrecy and our government telling porkies and doing cover ups, that's why.
The public want to be told the truth from their government, not hear it from people breaking their contracts because of the cruelty we aren't told about. Or because they know the government is lying to us.
Yes people are obviously concerned about those traffic jams in western sydney 🙂
