Monday September 12, 2005

Here we are at the notorious barbed wire of the Villawood Detention Centre. Amanda Vanstone was "cutting the razor wire" at the centre, in a ceremonial and symbolic end to the harsh detention regime that helped keep the Howard government in power. We were surrounded by bleeding lefties. We were all of a gang and couldn't be described. This is the moment, after demonstrators had been evicted from Villawood Detention Centre, when the journalists are wandering back to the visitors centre. I was an intern at your paper, I remember what you said about those disabled kids, said one handsome young chap: "Their heads flop, they sometimes dribble and they often giggle." It was one of those few moments when journalism meant anything; when all the daily crud had some positive impact. The Education Minister of the day Terry Metherill had axed the assistants for the disabled kids, some of whom couldn't do any more than move a finger; their only hope the computer technology; the only bright spots in their day the school. The headmaster had ignored the departmental protocols and let us in to film. We photographed them by climbing up into a fig tree in the school grounds. The kids were in a big circle. Then they tagged each of the kids with their disability and what needed to be done for them on a daily basis, just so they could go to school. It ran on page three of the Sydney Morning Herald with the opening line: "Their heads flop, they sometimes dribble and they often giggle". You couldn't read it without going - oh, that's outrageous. Look on and weep. By 11am the Premier of the day Nick Greiner was on radio reversing the decision. It was one of the few times when you could say, we done good. "Lock up Vanstone, free the Refugees", some determined protestors chanted. It was all good fun as far as we were concerned, added a bit of colour to what was going to be a free kick for Amanda; not that I dislike her. There are legions that hate the Howard government, it seems to be a reflex action to prove you're cool. But the years roll by and you realise life is not a university; that tyranny comes as often from the left as the right; that even here in the innner city curtains are repeatedly thrown across our thoughts. You can only think one way. You must deplore the department of immigration. You must support multi-culturalism, the official erosion of the mainstream culture. You must support single mothers and lesbian mothers and domestic violence campaigns. You must be a member of a union and you must never ever think for yourself. You must campaign for reconciliation with the indigenous population and you must support an ever increasing welfare state. They say they want diversity and they want nothing of the kind. In the narrow bands of ideology we suffer and we die. I never did dislike Amanda. At least she had a bit of personality, which was more than you could say for a lot of Howard's cabinet. I remember once, in the leadup to the Olympics, we were doing a story on the sniffer dogs She had weimeraners herself, was dog mad, and had cooked some home made biscuits for the beautiful brown labradors. When she showed up at the airport, surrounded as always by minders and press secretaries and security, the dog trainers were horrified. You can't feed them that, they said. All their training is with food, it will ruin them. She was clearly disappointed. But ever after, for years, when I spotted her at crowded press conferences, she would say across the crowd of suits that always surrounded her: "Weren't those dogs georgeous John." It was endearing, and eccentric, and perhaps her happiest days. She loved being surrounded by the boys in uniform. Immigration was too messy. And it didn't really suit her, being cast as the demon by the ever screaming left.

The news:
The protestors chanted ``Shame Vanstone Shame'' and ``Lock Up Vanstone, Free the Refugees'', familiar cries to a public grown accustomed to refugee demonstrations.But this time the cries were coming from inside the notoriously grim Villawood Detention Centre in western Sydney. And the protestors were blocking the path of journalists trying to get into a press conference to be held by the Immigration Minister and designed to highlight the government's softening stance on immigration detention. Amanda Vanstone and her minders were forced to delay a ceremonial and symbolic cutting of the razor wire until the protestors were removed from the site.The three, from the Refugee Action Coalition, got past security guards and onto the site by blending in with a mob of journalists and cameramen. ``She is not accountable, she is here for show, she is not prepared to answer the hard questions, this is a stunt,'' veteran protestor Ian Rintoul declared. After a delay of about half an hour and after being warned by NSW Police officers that they were trespassing, the protestors were escorted off the property but were not arrested.The Minister was then free to get on with her business. ``I am pleased to announce that workers have now started bringing down the razor wire at Villawood,'' Vanstone said. ``The wire will be donated to the Smorgan Steel Great Scrap Round-Up, which is raising money for bush fire brigades in NSW.'' She said the move, along with new landscaping works around the perimeter fencing, would change the look and the feel of the centre for both detainees and visitors.``I think that is a good thing,'' she said. ``It is an example of where the Government has gone further than changes recommended by the Palmer Report to improve the detention centre environment. ``The removal of the wire is a statement of good faith from the Government which I hope will be matched by people in centres and those outside who may be opposed to detention policy.''Then, as dozens of cameras flashed, Vanstone ceremoniously cut the lethal looking razor wire surrounding the centre. Former inmates of Villawood said they found it hard to believe that things were really improving. Iranian Mohsen Soltani, 35, who spent four years at the centre and is now a student, said ``the environment is shocking. Hopefully we will find peace between the refugees and the government one day. But it is far away to believe that they are improving things. Villawood is really hell, you cannot definite it any other way. Prison is better than detention.''