Thirteen Seconds vs. Thirteen Years: A Reflection on Compassion and Injustice

By Ali Mahmoodi Gharaei

Recently, a video went viral on social media showing a young American tourist in Australia picking up a baby wombat from the side of the road and holding it briefly in front of a camera. The animal was separated from its mother for only 13 seconds.

In response, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese publicly described the act as deeply distressing for the mother wombat. The Minister for Immigration intervened and acted swiftly. Within days, the tourist’s visa was reviewed and cancelled, and she was removed from the country.

This rapid response was framed as a reflection of Australian values – a nation where even the emotional wellbeing of wildlife matters.

But this same sense of urgency has never been extended to people like Sara Mashalian and her elderly mother. They have endured more than 13 years of displacement, indefinite visa uncertainty, and emotional trauma since being sent to Nauru in 2013 – before the government’s official cut-off date of 18 September 2013.

They were promised protection. Instead, they remain excluded, with no pathway to permanent safety.

We are human beings, not animals. If 13 seconds of distress for a wombat triggered intervention from the highest levels of government, how can 13 years of human suffering be ignored?

This question is not rhetorical. It demands an answer.

Even Minister Tony Burke, who currently holds responsibility for migration, would surely acknowledge that if distress caused to a wombat is unacceptable, then more than a decade of suffering for a human family must be unquestionably unacceptable too. The Albanese government has the power to end this injustice immediately.