Many of the Australians I know who are now in their forties or older participated in the convergence on the Woomera detention center for refugees just after Easter, 2002. It was a protest that became especially legendary because it was during this protest that a successful breakout of refugees detained in the facility took place.
It would be hard to overstate what an impact this protest, and the Woomera Breakout, seems to have had on both Australian refugee policies going forth, as well as elsewhere in the world that I have witnessed. Off-shoring refugees as well as dramatically increasing security measures at such facilities in many different countries followed. But the Woomera Breakout inspired many, and continues to do so. Many of those refugees who escaped detention then are still free people today, known collectively as the Skippies.
Woomera (Free the Refugees)
Things had been getting worse, and then even more
Detaining anyone without a visa who came to shore
Put in prison camps which they called reception centers
With families held indefinitely after they had entered
Protests were getting bigger, all across the country
With the people chanting, “free the refugees”
They opened a facility in the middle of nowhere
Adelaide was five hundred miles south of there
Out of sight and out of mind, imprisoned with no phone
The government was hoping they’d be cut off there alone
Til one day people came from all over the country
And you could hear them chanting, “free the refugees”
A thousand people drove there from all over Australia
Converged in the desert at the prison in Woomera
When they got to the center, gathered on the fence line
Some of those inside the prison took it as a sure sign
That this was the moment they would flee
As they could hear the people chanting, “free the refugees”
They knew it might be a long shot, but scores of them got
Out with the demonstrators, to the parking lot
From the middle of the desert, despite the dragnet
A whole bunch of the imprisoned managed to get
Some semblance of freedom, and the lasting memory
When they could hear the people chanting, “free the refugees”
Now the government has new plans to safeguard the ports
To imprison human beings until they self-deport
If they don't come with the right papers, send them away
Who cares what any of the bleeding hearts say
Who cares why they fled their homes and came across the sea
Now listen to the people chanting, “free the refugees”
New song: "Woomera (Free the Refugees)"