Angelina Jolie, get on a plane. Australia needs your help to be a better global citizen.

Angelina Jolie, we need you.

We need to use your incredible fame for good. We need you to expose what our own Government won’t be honest about. We need you to show us the truth of Australia’s refugee shame.

Yesterday, the President of Nauru invited you to visit his country. You have to accept that invitation, Ms Jolie. You simply have to. If you leave from Los Angeles, you can be on Nauru in 22 hours and 30 minutes.

The President will greet you, he’ll want to show you the Australian built detention centre that has stimulated his local economy. He’ll be proud of it. But let me tell you that here in Australia? We are not.

There are others who will greet you, along with the president. The 208 children currently being held in mandatory detention, some of whom have been physically and sexually assaulted. Several young pregnant women who have tried to take their own lives in the hope that, if they die, their children will have a better chance at Australian citizenship. There will be fathers who are rioting; desperate to draw attention to their plight. Kids with preventable illnesses and limited access to healthcare.

There are dehydrated, desperate human beings languishing there in hot, rough, cramped conditions like battery hens. They are the victims of the Australian Government’s morality deficit, and the world needs to know they exist. Every one of those asylum seekers has asked for refuge in Australia, but our government intends to turn them away.

Why? Because they came by boat instead of plane.

Our Prime Minister Tony Abbott gave the United Nations the middle finger and sent these refugees offshore to Nauru. He and our Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison, have shrugged off international law so they can reach their pathetic election promise to “Stop the boats“.

As the public, we’ve tried to appeal to their empathy, we’ve tried to bargain with our votes. We’ve tried to send journalists to uncover the truth. But we’re not getting any closer to saving these people, or even finding out exactly what’s happening to them.

And the situation is only getting worse.

It didn’t occur to me until yesterday, that what we need now is you.

For a few precious hours yesterday, everyone who works in the Australian media thought that you had already agreed to visit Nauru. I was jubilant – I thought your presence could be the publicity we need to get people to care about asylum seekers and what is happening in our country’s name, just hours from our shores.

I still think that. I know it.

You do such extraordinary humanitarian work. You’ve held a summit in London to discuss sexual violence against women in war zones, one of the most serious mass crimes of our time. You’ve helped countless refugees in Syria and Haiti. You’ve used your fame to put refugee safety on the global agenda.

And now? We need you to the visit place our government has sent people in need to die.

We don’t have a spotlight to shine on the atrocities happening on Nauru right now. But you do. An international media and humanitarian spotlight follows you wherever you go, and right now we need that spotlight here.

Please, please, call the President of Nauru and accept his invitation.

We need you to tell the truth that our politicians refuse to.

Please share this post on social media with the hashtag #pleaseangelina if you agree with our author’s plea.