Cost of Australia holding each refugee on Nauru balloons to $4.3m a year

Exclusive: Taxpayer cost of offshore processing regime revealed as government remains silent on where $400m went

The cost to Australian taxpayers to hold a single refugee on Nauru has escalated tenfold to more than $350,000 every month - or $4.3m a year - as the government refuses to reveal where nearly $400m spent on offshore processing on the island has gone.

Australia currently pays about $40m a month to run its offshore processing regime on Nauru, an amount almost identical to 2016 when there were nearly 10 times as many people held on the island.