Finally figured out how to upload my Baxter Refugee Convergence video from Easter 2005 to YouTube!

I was inspired to FINALLY post this in solidarity with those currently converging on Yongah Hill Detention Centre in Western Australia this weekend.

It goes for 18 minutes. There’s a wacky scene definitely worth waiting for at 13:18 minutes.

Detention facilities such as Yongah Hill are used specifically because they are isolated from the main population centres of the south-east part of Australia. Just like the remote detention centres of the Howard era, Woomera, Curtin, Port Hedland, Baxter, Nauru and Manus Island, the isolation is used to discourage public scrutiny. It is a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, or rather, ‘Out of public sight, we can tell whatever lies we like and demonise refugees without the Australian public developing any sympathy for them’.

You can read my Baxter blog entries from 2005.