Head in hands.

If you  haven't already seen this, I strongly suggest watching. Detention centres are usually off-limits to the Australian media and now I know why.

(image from Get-Up, sign their petition against mandatory detention here)

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2011/10/20/3344543.htm

Why the fuck is this happening here??
We know that indefinite detention has extremely negative and severe mental impact on detainees and yet we still have a system that keeps people in prison-like conditions for over 21 months. Add the fact that many of these people have already endured significant trauma in their birth country, have often left behind family, sacrificed everything just to get here, and are predominantly found to be legitimate asylum seekers: it's a pretty shameful situation.

I find it sickening that just a week before this was aired, Today Tonight showed a segment on "Asylum Seeker Town: the place where asylum seekers are living in better conditions than the locals". It's all about the tragically unfair way in which the Australian government supposedly puts out the "welcome mat to boat people" to come stay at our "Refugee Resorts" on "taxpayer's money", where, shock horror, "there is no wire fencing, no bars, and the inmates live in four-star luxury." (Sadly, these are direct quotes. Excuse me while I bang my head against a wall.)

It wouldn't be quite so infuriating, except for the fact that, as Media Watch's Jonathan Holmes points out (in his awesome roasting of TT, exposing the complete lack of factual evidence for their claims), more people watch Today Tonight than those who watch Four Corners. As he also notes, perhaps this gives us some insight into why this non-issue is considered cause for political debate at all.

What's problematic is that probably a lot of the people who watch current affairs shows like Today Tonight genuinely trust that they are getting factual, evident information. And in an ideal world, people should be able to have this trust in the media.

In my own experience with relatives and family friends, it seems that elderly people are particularly vulnerable to this kind of total trust in current affairs shows, forming their opinions based on segments like the one mentioned. I try to keep this in mind when people express views that seem to have little basis in factual information about asylum seekers- it's not that the people expressing the views are necessarily racist or xenophobic..they've just been fed lies by a media program that runs on fear.

And it's all just very sad.