" The Guards' Story"
Reporter: Quentin McDermott
Date: 15/09/2008
PHILIP RUDDOCK (archive footage): It's not a holiday camp. Nor should it be seen as a holiday camp. It's not a jail. It's a detention centre.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Five years ago one of Australia’s most discredited policies began to fall apart.
As protests, riots and acts of self-mutilation hit the headlines, Woomera Detention Centre, in South Australia, closed down.
One month later, "Four Corners" showed this footage, filmed by the detention centre’s officers.

STEVE HASIUK, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02 (to person behind door): Could you open the door please?

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Tonight "Four Corners" provides the first ever glimpse inside Woomera’s replacement - the notorious Baxter detention centre.
(Sign on the door reads: "Don't knock f**k in door. Don't disturb please, give me alone in this cemetery. I don't want to talk with anyone. Officers, I don't want any phone call. I won't talk.")

CAMERA OPERATOR (as guards break down door and enter the room): I need to get in guys; I need to see.
(Shouting)
CAMERA OPERATOR: Stop it! Down. We have.
OFFICER (as guards struggle with room's occupant): Calm down! Relax! Calm down! Calm down!

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In recent years "Four Corners" has highlighted the plight of asylum seekers.
Tonight, the guards who worked on the front line at Woomera and Baxter speak out about the challenges they faced and the legacy of those experiences.

ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: We were just treated like cannon fodder, if you like. We were just numbers on the ground. We got paid a wage. And then when we started to fall over, well that was it. They didn’t want to know us any more.

LES BROOKS, GUARD, WOOMERA 2002: My marriage broke up and I tried to commit suicide twice. I tried to hang myself and I took a cocktail of drugs.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Rod Gigney, walking through detention centre gate): So this is it?
ROD GIGNEY, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: Yes, this is where the officers all came in every morning. We'd come through this little gate over here, into this office, show our badges, cards, sign in a ledger book. Then an x-ray machine...

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Rod Gigney worked as a guard at Woomera. Last month he revisited the detention centre with "Four Corners".

ROD GIGNEY, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: This was the main compound, Quentin. It’s where the hunger strikes all were, they were all lined up here. And across here they had blankets tied to the fence and mattresses underneath. Most of the ladies had their lips sewn up either with wire or with mesh. And over here was infamous man who jumped off one of the top of the dongas straight into the razor wire…

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Woomera now is a deserted, empty shell. It’s where thousands of asylum seekers were detained and processed and it’s where one of Australia’s most controversial, divisive policies played out.
For those who lived and worked here, vivid memories remain. But there’s little doubt that for many detainees and staff, Woomera was a profoundly damaging and dehumanising experience.

When ads appeared in the local papers offering jobs at Woomera Detention Centre, Rod Gigney and Tanya Austin both applied. Like many other South Australians they saw the opportunity of a steady job with a decent income and plenty of overtime.

ROD GIGNEY, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: My family sort of suggested it was time for me to get a real job and so I applied for the job and, yeah got accepted.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Rod Gigney): Were you surprised by the range of people who were being hired to work at Woomera?
ROD GIGNEY, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: Yes it was probably hit me more than anything that we had little 18-year-old girls that I thought were better off behind a supermarket counter but a lot of times it turned it proved me wrong.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When Woomera opened, the management of the detention centre was handed to a private company - Australasian Correctional Management, or ACM.
Many of the recruits came from local towns like Port Augusta and ACM was required to screen them all.
But their tests didn’t filter out applicants like Tanya Austin - a 20-year-old mother of three. Tanya had run away from home at the age of 15, had had her first child a year later and had just come out of a violent relationship.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Tanya Austin): Did they interview you?
TANYA AUSTIN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: Yeah there was an interview with three panellists.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Tanya Austin): And did they know about your life at the time? Did they know how hard it was for you?
TANYA AUSTIN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: Um, didn’t really ask. No.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Dr Simon Lockwood spent years treating detainees and staff at Woomera and monitoring their mental and emotional state. He believes some staff should never have been hired.

SIMON LOCKWOOD, GP, WOOMERA TOWNSHIP 2000-04: I know of several cases where the person had a history of mental illness or currently had a mental illness and they were hired to go and work in that environment, and I think that was definitely the wrong thing to do.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Simon Lockwood): I’ve interviewed one young woman who had three children and she was 20 years old and she’d just come out of a violent, abusive relationship. Should someone like her have been hired?
SIMON LOCKWOOD, GP, WOOMERA TOWNSHIP 2000-04: Oh definitely not. Doesn’t pass the test of common sense to hire someone like that to go in an environment where she’s almost certainly going to be exposed to further violence.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: None of the men and women "Four Corners" has spoken to say the training they received from ACM prepared them for the scenes they faced when they walked through the gates at Woomera.
Les Brooks was working as a delivery officer for Australia Post when he applied for the job.

LES BROOKS, GUARD, WOOMERA 2002: We weren’t allowed to use the word detainee. It was UNC - Unlawful Non Citizen. They were from Iran, Iraq and we weren’t told you know what to expect.
I just thought it would be just looking after you know the UNCs, taking them from point A to point B, not being abused or anything like, because I just thought they were just normal, every day people.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Some cultural awareness training was given to the new recruits but not enough, according to one of the officers, Steve Hasiuk.

STEVE HASIUK, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: A piece of cardboard could be someone’s prayer mat and to an Australian person the piece of cardboard was a piece of cardboard on the ground, but to a Middle Eastern person if that’s all they had in their detention centre was a piece of cardboard to pray on, that was their world for five times a day, and if you stepped on it you’re doing the ultimate insult to them.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Steve Hasiuk): So did that create tensions within the centre?
STEVE HASIUK, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: Yes it did. It created a lot of tension.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: One aspect of the training that ACM did focus on was ensuring that officers were skilled at restraining detainees - with force if necessary.
When construction worker Sean Ferris joined up, it was known as conflict management.

SEAN FERRIS, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-03: The guy, I think he was ex-SAS, and he basically showed us a fair few take-downs and disarming techniques so that you could take people’s head off. And so calling it something nice like conflict management just made me giggle a bit you know.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Clive Skinn): What did you run into when you arrived there?
CLIVE SKINN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: Violence - simple as. Because I started there actually the Easter riots when 46 of them escaped because of them pricks from outside let them out. And, yeah it was just violence after violence after violence.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: A number of detention officers employed at Woomera came from other ACM institutions around the country. Among them was Trevor Robertson who had worked as a prison officer in Queensland before moving to South Australia.
Some ex-prison officers took a hard line and on occasion used undue force in their dealings with detainees when they were operating in Centre Emergency Response, or CERT teams.

TREVOR ROBERTSON, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: "Black Panadol" was the terms that the ACM jail officers would use for batons used on prisoners, oh he needs a bit of black Panadol to calm him down. "Gas and bash" was the terms that the flying CERT teams would use, as they seemed to think that you would come in, blow gas on people and beat them and resolve the situation.

ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: "Black Panadol" was the nickname for batons.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Allan Clifton): Not a very pleasant nickname.
ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: Not a very pleasant nickname. It implies all sorts of evil threats.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Allan Clifton had also been trained as a prison officer and worked at Woomera in a senior capacity as its operations manager between April 2000 and July 2001, during some of the detention centre’s most troubled times.
When he left, staff presented him with a ceremonial baton, paying tribute to his leadership qualities.
He remembers with dismay the behaviour of some officers and says he personally took steps to stamp it out.

ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: The majority of officers, given that they were poorly trained, were very, very good people who were trying to do the best they could under difficult circumstances.
We had a group of officers that had come from prisons, in particular Arthur Gorrie in Brisbane, who belonged to the so-called boys club. They were all about crash and bash, crash and bash, that’s the only way to do it.
(Excerpts from archival footage of riots):
FEMALE VOICE: S**t.
MALE VOICE (on loudspeaker): Look to your left!
FEMALE VOICE: I copped that one.
MALE VOICE: Come and look at me sister. F**k you're ugly. You're one ugly, f*****g Arab.
MALE VOICE: Another one coming.
FEMALE VOICE: Can I go out and whack him with my baton?
(End of excerpts)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: This riot by Woomera detainees took place in August 2000.
WOOMERA INMATES (archive footage, chanting): We want freedom! We want freedom!
MALE (archive footage, shouting, climbing fence): Release my mother! Release my brother ... ACM!
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: It would turn out to be the biggest disturbance ever at an Australian prison or detention centre.

ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: It developed very quickly into a full blown riot. It seemed that that the majority of detainees within that main compound, there were over 700 of them at the time, were fully intent on breaking out.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When it happened, the detention centre was ill prepared for a protest on this scale. Several detainees and 32 guards were hurt - some seriously.

ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: They knew we had very limited staff and they were trying to break us, to really stretch our resources.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Allan Clifton): And they were attacking with rocks and makeshift…
ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: They were attacking with rocks. They were attacking with star pickets, poles. They were setting buildings on fire. It was just, it was full on.

(Riot footage continued):
MALE VOICE: Okay, incoming.
MALE VOICE: Don't throw the rocks back at them, giving them ammunition.
FEMALE VOICE: Look at him with the slingshot.
MALE VOICE: Look out! Go!
(End of excerpt)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: This footage, first shown on "Four Corners" in 2003, graphically illustrates the violent clashes that occurred and the intensely stressful conditions officers worked under as decisions about how to handle the disturbance were made higher up the chain of command.
(Excerpt continued):
MALE VOICE: The operator is now having rocks thrown at him again.
MALE VOICE: Throw it to the camera.
MALE VOICE: Yeah I know, that's me.
MALE VOICE: That's right.
MALE VOICE: Lock all the troops in behind with the razor wire as well...
(End of excerpt)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: But the full extent of the chaos and stress at senior management level during the riot is only now emerging. As the riot raged, the centre manager snapped.

ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01:
Towards late morning, the centre manager had a bright idea that maybe he should get a shotgun and bring it on site. I went and started arguing with him, you know, asked him why he intended to bring a shotgun in. Bearing in mind this is a man that his eyes had glazed, he’d totally lost it.
He said, "Well I’ll just use it and fire over their heads". I think I said, "That will make things worse, people might get injured."
"Well I’ll just fire it into the ground."
The same argument, people might get injured and it’d make things worse.
He said, "Well then I’ll just shoot the c***s."
I could not allow that to happen. I couldn’t allow it to happen. I continued to argue with him. And then all of a sudden it was like someone had flicked a switch in his head and he was holding a shotgun at the time. He threw it on the floor. He said, "Where did this gun come from? Who brought this on site?"
And I said, 'Well you instructed this officer to bring it on site."
He said, "I’ll have him charged. He knows we’re not supposed to have firearms on site, get it out of here."
And that was the shot gun incident. We got it off site.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Allan Clifton): Did you report the incident?
ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: Yes, of course I reported the incident. I reported exactly how it had happened and nothing happened, nothing happened.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Allan Clifton): It wasn’t acted on?
ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: It wasn’t acted on.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Allan Clifton): What happened to the centre manager?
ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: The centre manager stayed there. Eventually the centre manager went off on stress a couple of months later.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: "Four Corners" approached the centre manager but he declined to comment.
There were other violent episodes at Woomera. In one, Sean Ferris says he and other officers were trapped in a cabin, waiting for a CERT team to rescue them as detainees tried to burn it down.

SEAN FERRIS, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-03: They started pelting it with rocks and they got their iron bars and stuff and they’re trying to break in and they’re seriously trying to get in to do us some damage.
And we’ve called a CERT of course because we need some help, there’s only five or six of us in there. And while we’re waiting for things to happen and, you know, can we get out of here in one piece please, they decided they weren’t going to wait for us to come out any more and they couldn’t break in, so they set the building on fire.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Sean Ferris): How frightening was that?
SEAN FERRIS, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-03: Very frightening. I still have nightmares about things like that now where sometimes I’ll, in the nightmare or dream that I’m having I’ll be calling a CERT, you know CERT 1, CERT 1, on you know, I need some help here, and just no-one answers. You know, and you just, you wake up and you know your heart’s racing. And yeah, it’s things like that still affect me now.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: There were peaceful moments, but even day-to-day life could suddenly turn nasty.
Shortly after arriving at Woomera, Clive Skinn says he was attacked by a detainee.

CLIVE SKINN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: There was a rule they weren’t allowed to take food out of the mess and they were taking it out, so I tried to stop them, like we were instructed to. And he got quite aggressive this character and bang, just head-butted me.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Tanya Austin says she was attacked in a similar incident.

TANYA AUSTIN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: A detainee was trying to take a tub of hot curry out. There was me and a male officer standing at the door. We both, you know, said that the rules were you know for his own safety and etc, that they weren’t allowed to take food.
And yeah, then he’s like smashed it in my face and it was it was hot curry and like spicy hot as well as hot. It’d just come out of being dished up.
So yeah it burnt my face a little bit and damaged my eyes and now I have plastic tubes in my tear ducts to make my tear ducts work.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: This wasn’t the only time Tanya Austin says she was attacked. On another occasion she and a fellow officer went to lock up a games room, but the young men using it didn’t want to leave.

TANYA AUSTIN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: One in particular was throwing stuff around and he picked up the telly and went to throw it at me and I was trying to stop him from throwing it at me. And then I was kind of like pushed around and then like the TV dropped and then he put his hands around my throat and started choking me.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: As the young man tried to choke her, Tanya Austin says, another young man swung at her with a nail embedded in a toothbrush, narrowly missing her head.
She escaped physical injury but was sent home to recover. She would never work at Woomera again.

TANYA AUSTIN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: I basically had a nervous breakdown and I ended up on a lot of medication. Like I self-harmed myself. Then I was sent to the Glenside Hospital and then I was sent to the Adelaide Clinic for three months.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Tanya Austin’s attempt to harm herself was a sad mirror image of what occurred among the asylum seekers at Woomera.
As their frustration grew at the Government’s delays in processing their visa applications, many went on hunger strike.
Adults and children stitched their lips together.
Young men slashed themselves with razors.
Detainees cut their bodies after crawling into the razor wire surrounding the detention centre.
And some tried to hang themselves.

CAROL WILTSHIRE, GUARD, WOOMERA 2002: When you got five-year-old kids trying to drink shampoo; you got 10-year-old boys with their lips sewn and you have grown men sitting in graves, digging their own graves and just refusing to eat, refusing medical, refusing water. It was just terrible.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Some officers like Allan Clifton went to great lengths to save asylum seekers like this man who had reached the limits of despair and whose lives were clearly at risk.

ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: A detainee had become severely frustrated and had threatened to kill himself and all the time the blood is running down his throat.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: With ACM psychologist Harold Bilboe by his side, Allan Clifton talked to the man and eventually helped to subdue him.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Allan Clifton): Was that part of the job description?
ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: It was never part of my job description. That sort of intense negotiation was never part of my job description. I’d never been trained for that.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Harold Bilboe): Were these men and women in any way adequately trained to deal with the psychological distress that they encountered in the detainees?
HAROLD BILBOE, SENIOR PSYCHOLOGIST, ACM 2000-02: Definitely not. They were trained in the administration of their role and the function, but in dealing with someone’s emotional psychological distress, that takes years of training.

MALE (Excerpt from video showing male speaking to a group of officers, subtitled): We’ve got a psychologist on staff here able to talk to you immediately.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: By January 2003, when this footage was filmed, officers were being encouraged to seek psychological help. But in earlier years the arrangements were far more ad hoc.

ALLAN CLIFTON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, WOOMERA 2000-01: Taking stress leave was a big no-no. You didn’t go off on stress. If you went off on stress you might lose your employment.

STEVE HASIUK, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: A lot of people left the job with a lot of psychological problems because of what was happening. However, I was lucky. I was part of a pretty tight bunch of blokes that worked there and usually every night we’d catch up and have a drink and have a chat about what had happened during the day. It was sort of comforting because you knew they were going through what you were going through.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: It was left to doctors like local Woomera GP Simon Lockwood and company psychologist Harold Bilboe to pick up the pieces as best they could.

HAROLD BILBOE, SENIOR PSYCHOLOGIST, ACM 2000-02: In the pub, Eldo’s, we had Harold’s Corner where people, I would sit in the chair in the corner and people would come over and talk if they wanted to or say I’d go back to their units and talk to them in their units.

SIMON LOCKWOOD, GP, WOOMERA TOWNSHIP 2000-04: I’ve seen a lot of officers who would come and see me after events at the detention centre, having experienced abuse, either physical or emotional or verbal, from detainees or from other officers, people who just couldn’t cope with what they saw. I saw severe depression. I saw post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders. I saw a lot of alcohol abuse; people would drink to try and cope with what they saw. Saw a lot of relationship difficulties and marriage break-ups and it’s, it was a very toxic environment for a lot of the officers.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Simon Lockwood): Are you still seeing some of those officers?
SIMON LOCKWOOD, GP, WOOMERA TOWNSHIP 2000-04: I am to this day, many years later. Some of the officers travel from around South Australia and come and see me because they know that I know what they went through.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Woomera Detention Centre closed in 2003 and was handed back to the Department of Defence. The site is now known as Camp Rapier.
For Rod Gigney, revisiting Woomera proved an emotional experience.

ROD GIGNEY, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: Along this area here is where a lot of the hangings took place. It’s where I cut down one guy from up here, with the help from a Russian, one of the refugees.
And the little boy, there used to be a set of monkey bars in the middle. He hung himself on those. And also on the front of the fence. But his wasn't a serious attempt. It was like most, it was a cry for help.
But, how can you stop a little 12-year-old boy? How can you get into his mind to tell him not to do this sort of thing?
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Rod Gigney): What’s it like coming back here, Rod?
ROD GIGNEY, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: It brings back a lot of memories, a lot of bad ones, but also a lot of good ones. This was mostly a family compound and I had a lot of lovely friends in here. Yeah, I dunno. Yeah it certainly brings back (emotional) good and bad memories. Yeah that’s all I can say on that, thanks.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: When Woomera closed, Baxter Detention Centre near Port Augusta took over the job of housing and processing detainees. Last year it too closed down.
Until today, what really occurred at Baxter has been hidden from public view but tonight "Four Corners" can reveal images of life inside the detention centre.
Hundreds of hours of incidents were recorded on CCTV and hand held cameras. "Four Corners" has been given unique access to these tapes.
Several officers who worked at Woomera and went on to work at Baxter feature in the vision.
August the 10th 2004 - a typical day at Baxter detention centre, as Rod Gigney helps persuade a young man to hand over a razor blade.

OFFICER (excerpt from footage): What I’d like him to do is put the razor blade down, so that we can talk civilly over a cup of tea or coffee.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: And is then called outside to have a quiet smoke with him.
(Excerpt from footage, continued):

OFFICER (to Rod): No, no stay there. Rod can you just come outside and have a smoke with (inaudible) for two seconds please? Thank you.
MALE VOICE (commenting on Rod and detainee who are walking together): Just outside while they’re getting his room ready. Officer’s having a smoke with him, just to keep him relaxed.
(End of excerpt)
(Excerpt from footage of incident in detention centre):

CAMERA OPERATOR: The 23rd of the 8th, 2005, approximately 14.43.
(Footage of officers moving into room and struggling with detainee.)
(End of excerpt)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: August the 23rd, 2005 - violence erupts as officers attempt to move an African asylum seeker.
The man holding him by the head and neck is Steve Hasiuk.
When the man is brought to his feet, he lashes out.

OFFICER (to detainee, excerpt continue): Do you want us to hurt you? Because that's what it seems to me. I don't want to hurt you. No officer here wants to hurt you. But unless you can follow their instruction, you’re going to get hurt.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In Baxter’s maximum security management unit, a tense stand-off occurs with the same detainee - dressed in a regulation smock and clearly troubled.
As the man fails to respond to officers’ requests, they move in, using agonising holds to restrain him.
(Footage continues, detainee is shouting as officers hold him down.)

December the 14th 2005. An Indian detainee is collected from his room and taken to the Immigration Department office to hear that his most recent appeal against deportation has failed.

DETAINEE (excerpt from footage): Please don’t send me because I don't have anybody to help me. (Crying). Please, please don't send me! Please, you have to help me because I am really stressed, please. This is my home. This is my home! Please, please. I cannot go back. I don't have anybody, sir. My parents, my mum is here, my father murdered over there, back home sir. I have a fear of going back. That’s why I am an asylum seeker!
(On the floor) I will never go back! No way! That's not finished! I can't...
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: His distress expresses the frustration, fear and misery suffered by hundreds of detainees who passed through Woomera and Baxter.
Former asylum seeker Amir Javan has mixed feelings about four of the officers he knew at Baxter. Trevor Robertson, he says, didn’t always respond positively to detainees’ requests.

AMIR JAVAN, FORMER DETAINEE, BAXTER: He was he was a bit more than usual tough.
Carol was really a nice person, particularly I remember her because she was in our compound and for a while also she was the supervisor of our compound.
Clive, I remember him. He used to, I don’t know for what reason, he used to kind of reject everything. I don’t have any nice memories of him.
Rod in my opinion, he was a universal loved man. He was a really, really gentle, he was really great man.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Amir Javan has settled in Sydney where he now works in an estate agent’s office. He appeared in a previous "Four Corners" program about Baxter’s most famous detainee, Cornelia Rau - detainee number BX8311.

CAMERA OPERATOR (excerpt from footage of incident within detention centre): Third of the second, 2005. Removal of Anna BX8311 from Red One compound, side A. Present three SAPOL police officers, two ambulance staff, PSO Newell (phonetic), Parks (phonetic), PSO Edwards (phonetic), Dorming (phonetic), PSO Tate (phonetic)...

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: February the third, 2005 - Red One compound, Baxter Detention Centre.
Under cover of darkness, a mentally ill woman is about to be released from immigration detention. She has just been found to be an Australian permanent resident.
Her wrongful detention will make her famous and will prove a major embarrassment to State and Federal authorities.
Inside Baxter the woman is known as Anna, but only today have the authorities discovered that she is in fact Cornelia Rau.
This film of her removal has never been shown in public.
(Excerpt from footage, continued)

CORNELIA RAU (to officers): Hello how are you? I’m just having a shower.
OFFICER: I can see that.
CORNELIA RAU: That's good.
OFFICER: I'm from the ambulance.
CORNELIA RAU: Aha.
OFFICER: And we've been told that you need to get...
CORNELIA RAU: No, I'm fine thank you very much.
OFFICER: You're fine?
CORNELIA RAU: Yes, I am.
OFFICER: Yeah?
CORNELIA RAU: F**k off in other words.
OFFICER: That's fine but I've got no choice. I'm just...
OFFICER: I think you'd better f**k off! I'm taking a shower! F**k off!
(End of excerpt)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Her status as a permanent resident doesn’t accord her the privilege of having her shower.
(Excerpt continued):
OFFICER (to Cornelia Rau, dragging her out of the shower): Sorry, there's no ifs or buts about it.
CORNELIA RAU (to officers): Please don't hurt me.
(End of excerpt)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Instead, she is dragged out by male police officers who hold her as her towel falls away. She’s about to be committed for assessment under the South Australian Mental Health Act.
(Excerpt continued):
OFFICER (to Cornelia Rau): Do you want to put a t-shirt on?
CORNELIA RAU (to officers): I'm just wondering what I've done wrong. I'm just having a shower.
OFFICER: Okay, Anna is it? Anna...
CORNELIA RAU: I'm just having a shower.
OFFICER: Anna, just listen to me all right? My name is Steve all right? You've spoken to the doctor today. You need to go into hospital as a result of that. Do you understand?
CORNELIA RAU: I'm sorry darling, I don't, I haven't really understood what the trouble is...
OFFICER: You need to go to hospital with us. Do you understand that?
CORNELIA RAU: No, you see what I, basically what I am doing is having a shower. I haven't done anything wrong.
OFFICER: Okay, you need to get up...
CORNELIA RAU: I was just listening to some music, Silverchair was on...
OFFICER: Do you want a t-shirt?
OFFICER 2: Has she got any clothing?
CORNELIA RAU: I'm just wondering, I'm just wondering what the story is. I haven't done anything wrong. I just want to go and have my shower.
OFFICER: You're going to the hospital to speak to the doctor.
CORNELIA RAU: I haven't done anything wrong. I just don't need to go anywhere. I'm just happy here.
OFFICER: Do you want to put your clothes on?
OFFICER 2: There's clothes here.
CORNELIA RAU: If I can just go to bed. I just want to have a little rest. I want to sleep.
OFFICER: Anna, that's not going to happen.
CORNELIA RAU: I just want to go to sleep.
OFFICER: Are you going to put this on?
CORNELIA RAU: I just want to have a sleep.
OFFICER: Come away from the bed Anna. Let me get a blanket over the top of you.
CORNELIA RAU: I'm just wondering what the story is?
(End of excerpt)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Undressed, confused and frightened, she's pulled outside, put on a stretcher and restrained.
She is told she is being locked up for a second time.
(Excerpt continued):

OFFICER: You understand? You’re being detained under the Mental Health Act.
CORNELIA RAU: But I haven’t done anything wrong.
OFFICER: I’m not saying you’ve done anything wrong at all.
CORNELIA RAU: I just was having a shower.
OFFICER: Anna you’re not in any trouble whatsoever, right?
(End of excerpt)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: She is handcuffed to the stretcher.
(Excerpt continued):
CORNELIA RAU: Could I get my teddy please? Could you bring me my teddy?
OFFICER: All right. We'll get something in the bag for you eh?
CORNELIA RAU: If you could just bring my teddy please?
OFFICER: All right. We'll bring some clothing for you as well.
CORNELIA RAU: No just the teddy will be fine.
CAMERA OPERATOR: Room two has been secured.
(End of excerpt)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Helpless and covered only in a blanket, she is wheeled away to an ambulance which will take her to hospital in Port Augusta.
Cornelia Rau’s undignified removal from Baxter mirrors the lack of sensitivity shown to her as a detainee.
(Excerpt continued)
CORNELIA RAU (in ambulance): I'm just wondering, I don't want to go.
OFFICER: Unfortunately Anna, you've got no choice.
CORNELIA RAU: Why am I going?
(End of excerpt)
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Rod Gigney, who took a particular interest in her welfare, says Baxter’s management brushed him off when he tried to help her.

ROD GIGNEY, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: I rang down management and said there’s something wrong here, there’s something, and I was told that she was a heroin addict coming down off her heroin addiction.
She was definitely mentally disturbed. There’s no two ways about that. She was definitely troubled and I think detention made that more worse.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: In many cases mentally ill detainees received little sympathy from guards or from the centre management.
But some officers themselves became disturbed. In Clive Skinn’s case, it was after he saved a detainee who had tried to hang himself in a shower.

CLIVE SKINN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: I think that was nearly the last straw for me so I walked off, went to the pub, got smashed. And then when I started back there again it was about a week later, another Friday night, another one tried it. And that’s when they sent me to see a couple of psychiatrists because they said I was mad. Hello. And well after that, my whole world just fell apart.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Clive Skinn’s agitation was compounded when he encountered a former Woomera detainee he knew.

CLIVE SKINN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: That same one that head-butted me in Woomera actually attacked me in the medical centre in Baxter as well. And that’s when I said, told him I was going to kill him. And I wrote a report, told them in the report what I’d said and that’s when they walked me off site and I was never allowed to go back there.
I was on WorkCover for 18 months and then I tried to do myself in four times over it actually. The only thing that kept me going was me kids. And I just, yes, so full on it’s something I never ever want to see or do again. I don’t recommend it to anyone.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Clive Skinn’s breakdown is by no means unique. At least two other officers snapped as well.
This footage shows Trevor Robertson being pushed by a detainee near a perimeter fence, and the scuffle that ensued.
Later, Trevor Robertson says, he lost control when a fight broke out with some detainees who had been making weapons.

TREVOR ROBERTSON, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: Then a chair came and got me and then something else shoved me and after that all I remember doing was grabbing anybody that looked Asian by the throat and trying to seriously f*****g hurt them. I was trying to kill people because I thought somewhere around there there was a knife that was going to slip into my ribs or into someone else’s ribs and that. So as far as I was concerned I was fighting for my life.
And it absolutely appalled me because until then I had managed to get through detention without striking out in a vengeful fashion and that’s what I was doing then. And I knew that it was too much. I had to leave the situation.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: That night, Trevor Robertson left Baxter for good.
Rod Gigney also snapped. To his fellow officers, he was known as a "care bear" because he sympathised with the detainees and would spend hours talking to them.
But at the end, faced with one particular detainee who, he says, had assaulted his fellow officers on numerous occasions, it all became too much.

ROD GIGNEY, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: It was about two or three in the morning. I was sitting down, sitting there thinking and we had knives on the counter, locked up. And I grabbed one out and I was going down to fix this detainee up. Got about two metres from his door with a key and I thought, no this is not me. There’s something wrong here. This is... Went back and sat down again and being on my own I think I was just brooding and depressed and I thought, bugger it. I went down again about another hour later and nearly got the key in the door and thought, no this is wrong, there’s something wrong here. That was the breaking point for me that night.
(Excerpt from conversation at barbecue):
SEAN FERRIS, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-03: It was different at Baxter. Just people went home after work and that was about it.
CLIVE SKINN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: Yeah, you go home.
SEAN FERRIS, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-03: In Woomera you went down the Eldo or down to Spud's.
CLIVE SKINN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: That's right, that's dead right.
(End of excerpt)

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Hundreds of detainees and scores of officers reached their own private breaking points inside Baxter and Woomera detention centres.
For Les Brooks it came when he was summarily fired from Baxter by ACM. He started having flashbacks and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
He considered applying for workers’ comp but said he was told he wouldn’t get it.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Les Brooks): What happened after that?
LES BROOKS, GUARD, WOOMERA 2002: My marriage broke up and I tried to commit suicide twice. I tried to hang myself and I took a cocktail of drugs.
TREVOR ROBERTSON, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02 (to fellow ex-guards, at barbecue): It's just damned lucky we were here when five to 6,000 very rich Iranian Arab Afghanis suddenly found themselves in need of refugee assistance. Yeah. Maybe they get kicked out of the five-star hotels though back up in Indonesia. I don't know...

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: While some former guards tried to harm themselves, others became openly racist.
SEAN FERRIS, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-03: You know even when I see Muslims and people like that that remind me of the detainees from Woomera, when I see that people like that and violence like that on telly, I sit here now and I yell and scream and swear at the TV.

CAROL WILTSHIRE, GUARD, WOOMERA 2002: I hated them. I honestly did. I hated them and I wanted to run them over. I just wanted to strangle them. I thought, you know, this is me, a compassionate person turning into an absolute animal, and that’s how I felt though.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Carol Wiltshire): Do you still feel that?
CAROL WILTSHIRE, GUARD, WOOMERA 2002: No. Nope. Bit more compassionate now. Not much but yeah, little bit.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Some former guards have been judged medically unfit to go back to work.
"Four Corners" has established that there are at least 62 cases of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental disabilities among former officers.
One former guard is suing for damages. If successful, others may follow.

CHRIS EVANS, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP: There’s a duty of care there for the contractor and obviously if people have been inappropriately treated or have developed work related issues - be they physical or mental issues - then clearly it’s open to them to pursue compensation and I understand some are.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Chris Evans): Doesn’t the Federal Government have a duty of care towards these men and women as well? I mean after all they were carrying out Government policy.
CHRIS EVANS, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP: Well I think first of all as I understand it legally, the duty of care is with the employer. Certainly there may be some obligations on the department in relation to these matters, but as I understand it those are about to be tested in a court case and obviously that’ll be a legal decision.
MALE (at barbecue): Our kids suffered, big time...

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: These men and women feel that the private companies that hired them, and the Federal Government whose policy they enacted, have left them high and dry.

CLIVE SKINN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: They come around my place once and had a bit of a meeting with me and I never seen or heard from them again because I was out of their way.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Clive Skinn): So no follow up calls?
CLIVE SKINN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: No, no, nothing.
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT (to Clive Skinn): No follow up visits?
CLIVE SKINN, GUARD, WOOMERA 2001-02: No, no phone calls, no visits, no jack s**t, nothing. They didn’t care, but I was because I wasn’t their problem anymore.

TREVOR ROBERTSON, GUARD, WOOMERA 2000-02: They wrecked us. They said they committed to insuring us and looking after us if we were injured at work and they f*****g failed miserably.

PHILIP RUDDOCK: There's one road. If people escape and don't try to use the road they're putting themselves in a very, very vulnerable situation...
QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: Former immigration ministers Philip Ruddock and Amanda Vanstone both declined to be interviewed and no-one from the guards’ private employers would agree to appear on this program.
ACM will no longer comment on its record at Woomera and Baxter.
GSL - the company that took over the running of Baxter Detention Centre in 2004 - says its screening and training are rigorous and that counselling was available for staff who needed it.
Australia’s remaining immigration detention centres are still being run privately, for profit. But the Government insists that the way these companies and the Department of Immigration operate will change.

CHRIS EVANS, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP: I expect them to reflect the culture of the new Government. The values will reflect the fact that people should be treated with human dignity, that should not be indefinite detention and that detention’s the last resort.

QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: The challenge now will be to manage detention centres more humanely, for the sake of those seeking asylum on our shores and for the sake of the officers who guard them.

(End of transcript)