Inside Australia's Immigration Detention

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...

I heard that someone escaped from MITA (Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation) a few days ago.  As of today, Villawood started a pat search when a detainee goes to and comes back from the Visits. I guess the escape from MITA involved a visitor and the ABF went crazy.  Oh dear.  Villawood has always been worse than prison but it really is even now.  What's the point of searching a detainee when going from the compound to see a visitor?  There is nothing in the compound because the centre does not allow anything to get into the compound.  Can anybody tell the ABF to use their brain?  Oh, they don't have one?  That's a bit of a problem. Today, someone from my compound got a visa.  It is the first day of the year but someone in the Immigration started working and decided to grant a visa.  That's a good start, I think.