A routine removal
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 18: In the Neighbourhood
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Peter Mares
Download the complete article PDF
Peter Mares' biography and other articles by this writer
It is a cold winter evening and the visitors' lounge at the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre feels like the waiting room of a forlorn hospital, a place where you sit anticipating news that can only be bad. A few children's drawings are sticky-taped to the besser-brick walls. Scuffed vending machines in the corner offer soft-drinks and snacks. The combination of antiseptic, pale blue paint, institutional steel chairs and strip fluoro lighting makes the room cold, even though the heating is up high.
I hear the family before I see them, children asking questions in a corridor behind curtained windows, the deep but muffled voice of an adult answering. When a guard unlocks the door that gives access to the detention centre proper,[i] Karoline greets me and invites me to sit. We have never met before but she has an ease that belies the strained circumstances. Her voice adds warmth to the bleak surroundings.
Karoline is in her mid-thirties and is as talkative and animated as her husband, Jone, is taciturn and pensive. He shakes my hand politely in a soft Pacific Island way, at odds with his size and obvious strength. Jone lets Karoline do the talking as he cradles their year-old baby Sally, who wriggles in his giant arms. Four-year-old Felise is also restless: she plays with the visiting room's odd assortment of broken toys, then darts between us and other huddled groups of detainees and their visitors inside, and in the smokers' courtyard. Felise is greeted affectionately, sometimes offered sweets or snacks, but successfully ducks attempts to tousle her untamed curls. Her restlessness is an indication of the struggle to keep three kids occupied day in, day out. Karoline says the detention centre is ‘a pressure cooker' and after three weeks inside the family is ‘just keeping a lid on things'. Only the eldest, Penaia, manages to stay more or less still. He sits between me and his parents, legs swinging incessantly beneath his chair, listening attentively to the adult talk. Penaia is six and in his first year of school. A few more years in Australia and he could have been the family's passport to permanent residency and citizenship.
I came to Maribyrnong bearing gifts of fresh fruit – scarce in the detention centre – and sweets to brighten the kids' day. I am not permitted to give my presents to the family. The guards at the security desk tell me to label the plastic bags with the family's name in black texta. The bags will be checked and then given to Karoline and Jone after I leave. My mobile phone and wallet are also not allowed inside – I put them in a metal locker and sign in.
On the form, I declare I am a family friend. This is not strictly true. I've been ‘introduced' to Karoline and Jone by a mutual acquaintance and have come to the detention centre to ask them about their lives as undocumented migrants – illegals – living in Australia. At the outset, I feel compelled to remind them that I cannot pull strings with the Immigration Department or conjure miracles with migration lawyers. I don't want to raise false hopes. All I can offer is to tell their story. They accept this. Karoline knows I have been researching the feasibility of a seasonal workers scheme to allow Pacific Islanders to travel to Australia on short-term visas to pick fruit or do other horticultural jobs. This is the thread that connects us – despite her unlawful status Karoline had helped a Fijian group in Melbourne prepare a submission for a Senate inquiry, with detailed plans for a pilot seasonal work program in Shepparton. The idea won initial backing from the ACTU, before Australian Workers' Union leader and aspiring politician Bill Shorten denounced ‘guest worker' schemes as ‘exploitative of the guest and exploitative of unemployed Australians'. The idea of seasonal work – of Pacific Islanders coming to and from Australia for some months each year – is something Karoline has thought about a lot. Gesturing at the cold blue walls she says: ‘If you had a scheme like that then you wouldn't need a place like this.'