Russell Crowe says Australia’s treatment of refugees at the now-closed detention centre on Manus Island is “disgraceful” and has offered to find six of them jobs.
On Wednesday, the New Zealand-born actor tweeted: “Manus. A Nations [sic] shame. Lives held in limbo. Lives lived in fear & despair . It’s f***ing disgraceful.”
In a response to another user’s challenge that Crowe should house them if he felt “so ashamed” the Oscar winner tweeted: “I’ve thought about this. I believe I could house and find jobs for 6. I’m sure there’d be other Australians who would do the same.”
About 600 asylum seekers and refugees have barricaded themselves inside the mothballed Lombrum detention centre, which closed on Tuesday after PNG’s Supreme Court ruled last year their detention by Australia was illegal and unconstitutional.
The Daily Telegraph reports Crowe has since reached out the prime minister asking how he can help “simplify this mess”.
“I understand there’s a thousand problems out there in the world, but we created this one, we should do the right thing, purely from a humanitarian perspective, and fix it,” he reportedly said.
