Dear Prime Minister,

I can't bring myself to do any research for today's letter. More than 6 weeks of reading details about offshore detention is not hardening me to the terrible stories of the refugees on Manus Island and Nauru, it is doing the opposite. I cannot begin to imagine how damaging it is for the poor people who not only are surviving in appalling conditions but do not know when it is going to end. No wonder some of them have killed themselves.

'Mercy: compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm."

Show them mercy and bring them here.

Yours faithfully,

Ruth Halbert