This Seven Nightly News report offers a stark record of Australia’s immigration policy and its human consequences. The story frames the divide over the treatment of asylum seekers at Woomera by contrasting Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock’s defence of mandatory detention with Refugee Support Group spokesperson Julie Redman’s condemnation.

The report conveys disturbing realities – hunger strikes, lip-sewing and exposure to heatwave conditions – without resorting to graphic imagery. Instead, it relies on external shots of high fences through shimmering heat to evoke the conditions of life inside the centre.

Woomera opened in 1999 to hold 400 detainees. By April 2000, it had nearly 1,500 people, a third of them children. Between June 2000 and April 2002, detainees staged protests, riots, hunger strikes and a mass breakout to contest overcrowding and human rights abuses.

The centre closed in 2003, but it has remained a cultural flashpoint, inspiring the play Woomera (2002), numerous films that interrogate Australia’s refugee policies, and even the unfinished video game Escape From Woomera (2003–04).