ABSTRACT
It seems legitimate to ask, therefore, what kind of basis such feelings provide for the possibility of ‘remembering’ places such as the now closed but once notorious Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre? Some clues were provided when in May 2003, the Australian Broadcasting Commission aired a documentary ‘About Woomera’ as part of its flagship Four Corners investigative series. e programme followed the troubled history of this remote South Australian centre, which opened in 1999 and at its peak housed 1400 detainees in facilities built to accommodate less than a third of that number. It graphically detailed how this detention site had traumatised not only detainees, but also many of the security guards who worked there (ABC 2003a). At the end of the programme, viewers
were invited to respond to an online forum, and in a long list of postings, ‘pain’ and particularly ‘shame’ were persistently broached in the discussions:
From: Guest 19/05/2003 9:33:34 PM Subject: Shame ... shame ... shame! anks for a very good report. I feel so ashamed as an Australian that we would let such a thing happen. Where are the Govt. controls and standards ... what are we paying public servants to do? We expect that they should make sure this sort of thing does not happen. Shame Philip Ruddock.
