Inside Australia's Immigration Detention

Last night, I had a headache and could not sleep.  So I went to the guards' station and asked for paracetamol.  The guard telephoned a nurse who was on a break and would not return for another five minutes.  So I waited.  The guard called the nurse again but this time, the nurse was on the phone with someone.   According to the guard, one nurse is receiving all calls from all detention centres in this country so that it could take long for her to get a permission to give me paracetamol.  The guard put the phone on hold and waited for five minutes.  No signs of the nurse picking up the guard's call.  So I decided to fill in a complaint form.   I wrote the first complaint form without using my glasses.  I could not see anything well but usually, my writing is still legible.  But since it was very uncomfortable to write anything without actually seeing it, I took the case of my reading glasses out of my bag, opened the c...

As you must have noticed, I was really cranky yesterday.  The culmination was at night when a guard came to tell me that she had put a new girl in my room.  Of course, I said 'No'.   The guard asked me whether I wanted to speak to a manager.  I thought I would get the one whom I always speak to first thing in the morning next day rather than speaking to an unfamiliar one at night.  But I changed my mind when I was filling in a complaint form.  So I grabbed the manager of the day.  I told him that I was unhappy and gave him an unhappy stare.  He was mumbling one thing or another but soon agreed to do something in the morning.  Since I am not unreasonable (even though I may not be reasonable), I agreed to put up with a roommate for a night.  But when I came back to my room, the roommate came with her friends and collected her belongings and left.  I could not understand why the supposedly new girl had friends here and a...

It was an extremely busy day.  The problem was that I attended four activities without giving up my normal routine of having coffee and reading newspapers.  Every activity starts at half past and finishes at quarter past.  So during these fifteen minutes break, I rushed back to my compound to work on emails.  I served my final submissions on the other side, knocked off the last assessment of the online course and so on. Other than ESL and circuit training at the Gym, I tried one science(-like) course and the movie club today.   The lecturer of the science(-like) course showed us a TV program which was concerned with scientific research of the illicit drug use and its effect.  The real drug users participated in the experiment.  I learned the kinds of commonly used illicit drugs, how to use them and the effect of them....  For an ignorant person from a country where the drug control is almost flawless, all the information was new....

This morning, I collected from a guard my final submission to the Court which I had asked her to print out last night.  Then I immediately asked her to scan it.  She might have thought that I was bullying her.  But the Federal Court online document lodgment system does not accept a PDF file made by Google Docs.  So I have to print out a PDF file of my submission first and then scan it again to make another PDF file.  I was not bullying, really. Anyway, I filed my final submission this morning.  The remaining job for this migration case is to wait for the Registry to send me a service copy and serve on the other side.  It will probably happen on Monday.  After that, I will just wait for the judge to come back from holidays.  Since the court will resume on 5 February, he will start working from that week.  Given my case is seriously simple, it should not take so long to deliver the judgment.  But who knows. I finished st...

It seems that the very flirtatious hairdresser got a sack this week.  The rumour is that two girls lodged sexual harassment complaints and those led to his dismissal.  Geez.  I had my hair cut last week.  No wonder he was depressed and saying that there was a workplace problem, detainees gave him a hard time blah, blah, blah. People working here seems to get sacked very easily.  I heard from guards that their colleagues were often get sacked because they fell asleep during the night shift.  CCTV cameras are everywhere except for toilets and they are monitored, not just detainees etc, etc.  Well, the Immigration is good at crucifying everyone.

One girl got a broken bone in her arm, I think, today.  I heard there had been a fight in the shop since one of the girls pushed the other's back.  The one who, I heard, caused the injury is one of my former roommates.  She was quiet, neat, tidy, calm and pleasant, in my impression....  The one who got a broken bone lives in a couple doors away from my room.  She is a quiet, well-groomed, intelligent and elegant girl, in my impression.  I cannot believe that there was a fight between those two....  I think both are Kiwi, but I am not sure. According to one of my friends (guy/gay), one of the centre managers said that the girls' compound (Lima) had more problems than the male compounds.  I often hear guards talking to each other about who was sent to Lima.  So it seems, my building is the place where the guards are scared to work.  Mmmmm...   Today, I went to Charity Walk, women's knitting class and Personal Circuit at ...

I think I should send a bill to the Minister, really. This morning when I was working on the computer designated for my exclusive use in the computer room, a guard came to me with two new arrivals.  The guard asked me how they can log in to the computer.  I asked the guard whether they had a password.  The guard asked me how they can get a password.  I told the guard that she had to request it to the IT.  Then the guard said,  'Oh, I have to request it to IT?  OK.  Thank you.'   What the hell was that?!!  Why do I have to teach the guard what her job is?!!!  Not only that, the guard who is obviously new since I have never seen her before, knew my name and came to me straight away to ask the question!  I am not your supervisor, thank you.  I think this centre's management has some serious problems. The Minister's lawyers apparently have equally serious problems, too.  In their supplementary s...

My compound has a few flower beds or vegetable patches in the internal garden.  Currently, parsley, coriander, pak choy, celery, corn, sunflowers are growing.  The other day, some corns were pulled out and some sunflower's stalk was broken into two.  That made me feel sad.  I thought some of the stupid girls here must have done.  But that might have been an unsubstantiated allegation.  I saw this morning, a young cockatoo perching on a broken stalk of one of the sunflowers and happily munching on seeds!!  So cute!   This is the first time I saw a cockatoo in Villawood although I see galahs, a gang of thirty, visiting the Oval every day.  A family of five masked wrap wings (a kind of plover) lives in the Oval and they are my favourite to watch even though masked wrap wing is not one of my favourite species of bird.  The Oval also accommodates Indian mynah while my compound is a territory of an Australian native, noisy myn...

Today, I went to the Visit to see a Sister of a church.  I thought that the centre had introduced a new policy on 2 January to undertake a pat search of a detainee when entering into and coming out of the Visits.   At least, when I went to see visitors last week, the reception was in chaos as a result.  Today, there was no search.  No havoc.  Did they abolish the new policy in less than ten days?  Well, if so, it's good since the search was plainly meaningless but creating huge havoc and chaos.  But couldn't they think what is going to happen if they introduce such a policy BEFORE actually introducing it??? Anyway, when I was talking with the sister, I saw a guard with whom I often had a chat passing by.  I said to him, 'Hi!' and he came to join us.  I told him about my current battle against the Acting Health Services Manager who is a registered nurse.  She refused to book an optometrist for me despite that she was directed to...

It was rainy this morning.  When I went out in my poncho, I met a guard who had walked into a column on Day 64.  He was wearing a hat with its brim extended by a handmade cardboard brim covered by a plastic bag!  I laughed.   He explained to me that it was not only convenient to avoid rain, it also prevents him from walking into a pole as the brim will act as a stopper!!  This guy is seriously funny. After the chat, I went to a brekkie and the hairdresser, and then came back to the compound.  That guard came wearing no hat.  I said to him, 'No hat?'  He replied, ''Cuz it's not raining anymore.'  So I said, 'It's a shame.'  He burst out laughing and said, 'You always have a word!'.  What did he mean?!  I just engaged in an ordinary meaningless conversation. I heard that two guys were sent to Christmas Island.  One building (next to Lima) was completely vacated last week.  Obviously, the centre is preparin...

I was told that it was 44 degrees here today....  Grrrrrr...  It was not my fault that I had two cups of ice cream and 4 zooper doopers after lunch.  Guys gave me theirs.  It would be their fault if I put on more weight....   Since I had no skill of opening zooper dooper bags, I asked a guard to cut open with scissors.  She looked stunned when I held out four zooper doopers.  But she was not entitled to be surprised since she probably weighed 100kg or so.  Even though I put on some weight, I am not that bad. ... yet. It's seventh today so that I still have to wait for the incompetents working for the Immigration for one more week.  So I enrolled in Financial Literacy course offered by Open Universities (free of charge!).  The data download is free while here.  So I will enjoy a bit of study.

Yesterday, I noticed one middle-aged male guard looked like he was not with it.  I asked him whether he was OK and he replied that he was just sleepy.  This morning, I witnessed him walking into a column!!!  He was definitely not all right!  I wonder whether he has the onset of something... I saw another medical problem today.  I met my next door neighbour.  She went to ... or was supposed to have gone to the hospital for an operation on the torn ligaments of her thumb yesterday.  She waited for the operation for a month with cordeine.  But according to her, she came back even before getting to the hospital.  It seems that there was a scuffle between her and escorts.  I don't know what really happened but no matter what happened, it sounds ridiculous to me to miss out the operation.  I am sure the surgeon and the hospital staff were annoyed.  No wonder this country's tax is so high. In the evening, my other side n...

It's Day 60.  It's the end of the year.  I guess/hope, 35 days to the judgment.  But I am getting itchy feet.  I don't want to just wait.  Then my private media advisor (my gooooood friend who is a retired well-known journalist) succeeded in hooking one of the media producers.  Yay!  I need someone to tell the Minister that the judge said, 'Minister might revoke his decision after this hearing.'  I also want someone to tell the Attorney-General that I will file an originating application seeking mandamus against him because my petition has been sitting on someone's desk in his Department for the last four years.  Those guys should do the right jobs before wasting tax payers' money and judges' time. By the way, do you think the Immigration is reading my emails?  I am asking it because I got a poncho this morning.  It was raining when I was on the way to the Dining rooms for brekkie so I asked a guard for a poncho....