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How Nauru squandered millions in mining royalties | Foreign Correspondent Archives (2001)
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December 17, 2025
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December 17, 2025
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19:56Now PlayingThe tiny nation of Nauru used to be one of the wealthiest in the world. It's natural reserves of phosphate once made millionaires of the entire population. But once the reserves ran dry, reality set in.
Their fortune has been squandered by a succession of inept political leaders and their island spoiled by corruption, greed and exploitation.
This Foreign Correspondent documentary was filmed in 2001 – shortly after Nauru and the Australian government reached their first agreement on refugee resettlement as part of the controversial Pacific Solution.
At the time, Nauru was a country in crisis. There were daily power blackouts. The country's public servants weren't paid and the children couldn't go to school because there wasn’t any water. The tiny country had – and continues to have – one of the worst rates of adult diabetes in the world.
"They're are just not spending, (money), on health, they're spending it on other things - if the Minister needs to go on a first class world trip to Geneva, he goes, but we don't have a few thousand dollars to pay for essential urgent supplies", Dr Keiren Keke told the program at the time.
The central bank was broke and their businesses were prey to a shabby collection of spivs, and money launderers, set on plundering the tiny nation's fragile cash reserves and exploiting the good nature of its inhabitants.
"If nothing changes, they will face a complete collapse of the economy, they are already dangerously close", says Tilak Sen of the Asia Development Bank.
Almost 25 years later, Nauru’s economy is largely reliant on foreign aid, asylum seeker processing fees from Australia, fishing and mining exploration. Subscribe
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