After two days of talking up Australia's controversial refugee policy in New York City, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull delivered his first address before the United Nations General Assembly.

"Secure borders are essential.  Porous borders train away public support for multiculturalism, for immigration, for aid to refugees," the PM said before a nearly empty room early on Thursday morning.  Mr. Turnbull cited the story of Sydney Swans player Aliir Aliir, whose family fled the bloody civil war in Sudan, as evidence of Australia's multiculturalism thriving under its current immigration policies.

The PM didn't mention the vast problems in the Manus Island and Nauru detention camps, problems that include sexual and physical abuse, rampant self harm, and substandard medical and psychological are.  In a pre-emptive strike, a Manus Island detainee recorded a statement condemning the federal government's actions.

"Australia's offshore policy is not based on border protection, it is based on torture," said refugee journalist Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian Kurd who fled his country when agents from Tehran cracked down on his news agency.  "The Australian government has kept us in this remote island for more than three years and it is clear that they don't have any plan for settle us here."

Mr. Boochani implored UN members, "Please don't allow (the) Australian government to pretend it has a good policy for refugees and please speak against this cruel policy.  We hope that the world puts pressure on the Australian government to give to us freedom."

Prime Minister Turnbull wasn't just taking flack from refugees, his predecessor Kevin Rudd spent some quality time taking shots at the PM for failing to back Rudd for UN Secretary General.  Mr. Rudd said that Turnbull blocked the bid at "one minute to midnight" with a "concocted excuse" that flew in the face of the endorsement given days earlier by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. 

"Malcolm felt the pressure of the hard-right wing of his party, having had a narrow win in the last election, and as a result of that lost courage of his convictions, having provided me with multiple assurances privately over many, many months that he would be backing my candidature for the position," Mr. Rudd said on Sky News.

Turnbull claimed that Rudd's changes to Australia's border policy in 2008 was "the biggest policy failure in the history of the Commonwealth" that soon meant that "50,000 people arrived, 1,200 at least drowned at sea," and caused "$11 billion of expense".