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Go Back to Where You Came From

First review of SBS' next season of Go Back 2012. Can it work with celebrities?

SBS and Cordell Jigsaw have done it again.

Go Back to Where You Came From will once again provoke you, make you angry, emotional, vocal and informed.

It will again divide the nation as the issue of asylum seekers is put front and centre into our living rooms with uncompromising primetime access.

This time there are six “prominent Australians” instead of six ordinary Australians who will undergo confronting and arduous experiences in Australia and overseas.

I was nervous about changing the ground rules for this, indeed I was hesitant that some even met the brief of being a “prominent” Australian. But the evidence is there on the screen. It is no less compelling and indeed, it brings new argument to the debate.

The six are rock singer and aspiring National Party Candidate Angry Anderson, former Commonwealth Ombudsman Allan Asher, writer and social commentator Catherine Deveny, radio shock jock Mike Smith, model Imogen Bailey, and former Howard Government minister Peter Reith. There are three against our current immigration intake and three refugee advocates.

Landing Reith is a masterstroke. As Defence Minister in 2001 he was complicit in the “Children overboard” crisis, later revealed to be inaccurate. Regardless of whether one agrees with his politics, you have to respect his mettle in agreeing to participate in the series. This acknowledgement aside, you’re also free to object to every single thing he says in this documentary.

In the first episode the six are again divided into two groups to meet resettled asylum seekers, this time in Melbourne. Reith, Deveny and Anderson meet with Hamid from Afghanistan. As a persecuted Hazari, he left his family to take a boat to Australia. Deveny leads the sympathetic questions here, while a curious Anderson and Reith do their best to be respectful but holding to their beliefs.

Meanwhile Smith, Bailey and Asher meet a Somali-Australian who fled his war-torn country 20 years ago at the age of 13. Bailey surprises her co-participants by telling them she has been dating a Muslim, which in part drove her desire to participate in the series. For a former cover girl she shows an early passion for the arguments.

But it is the “Go Back” international legs that confront the six the most.

Reith, Deveny and Anderson are taken to Kabul in Afghanistan. It is snowed-in, unsafe with riots because Americans had only recently burnt the Koran. All of them are nervous. Deveny locks horns with Reith on his former policies. They meet a man who was on the Tampa, sent to Nauru by the Howard Government’s “Pacific Solution” (talk about timing, it is described in horrendous terms) and sent back to Afghanistan.

Smith, Bailey and Asher are taken to Mogadishu, Somalia, described as the most unsafe place on Earth. Smith teeters on terror in a security convoy with guns at every turn. There is no government, no police, and there are remnants of civil war with abject poverty on every street.

In the second episode the groups meet families in Afghanistan and Somalia, as the series zeroes in on personal stories: mothers unable to feed families, constant disease, lack of shelter, lack of water, drug dependence. They meet relatives of the families they met in the Australia. Connecting with the children hits some of them hard. Positions will be challenged, tempers fray, tears will be shed.

Deveny may well go a long way to undoing some of the implosion she has achieved to her own reputation. Reith’s defence “But we stopped the boats,” disintegrates with each passing scene. Others will surprise.

The third episode (unviewed) could be the most enduring yet when the six are forced to board a boat from Indonesia to Christmas Island. There they will visit the detention centre where cameras have never been allowed before.

Once again the series host is Dr. David Corlett, while narrator Colin Friels adds real gravitas. Cordell Jigsaw must be congratulated for the incredible access they have achieved, filming in some of the world’s most dangerous corners.

There’s no question this season packs a punch, although having been shocked by last year’s series it may not carry as much impact because the format is more familiar to us. The six are more strident in their agendas and more guarded with reactions in front of the cameras, but watching them squirm is fascinating viewing. While they bring more reason and experience to the debate, I’m not sure they will hold a mirror to society in the same way as Raquel’s racism or Rae’s unbridled passion in 2011.

But there’s no hiding from what the cameras show and one participant will admit to being ashamed of being Australian. It’s strong stuff.

My only quibble with SBS is that this is airing across three nights, 8:30pm Tuesday – Thursday August 28-30, with an Insight special on Friday 31st. The forum hosted by Jenny Brockie needs to be rescheduled to 9:30pm Thursday Aug 30, immediately following the last episode (ABC has had luck with this for with docos / Q&A). Having the debate on a Friday night is a waste of programming, when Twitter will be lit up on Thursday night.

Hats off to SBS for again delivering a topic that informs and entertains us, pushing the boundaries on a topic we see in the headlines everyday, in the hope of affecting change. This is when the broadcaster is best meeting its mission.

Go Back to Where You Came From 8:30pm August 28-30 on SBS ONE.

6 Responses

  1. This type of show only shows 1 side of the debate, yes people live in squalor, yes they live in war ravaged countries. And yes no one deserves to live like this. Having said that does the tv show show the viewer the transfer of funds to the people smuglers, does it show that once in Indonesia the refuges are free of a war torn country and threat of death?? Paying peole smuglers is not a pass to get into Australia. Once in Indonesia you are safe. Australians should know thousands of them holiday there each year.

  2. @ Mike Nicholson

    I agree with you as that would mean it would be more convenient for the audience. Plus the separate issues brought up each week could be digested properly. But I guess they just don’t want to do that.

    Although they did it when they repeated it. So people could wait for that. It’s what I did due to the electronic graffiti ruining all their shows including the News the first time they aired it. It put me off it. I really hope they avoid that this time.

  3. As mentioned I hope they repeat it the next night on Ch 32 like they did the last time. Although one option is on the Friday night they could repeat the last episode at 8.30pm and the Insight special at 9.30pm on SBS2 . Because I’ll admit I can’t watch it on Thursday. But Friday would be fine unless there’s something more tempting. I hope not.

  4. I’d go one further and say this is wasted stripped across three nights.

    I think it really needs to be on over 3 weeks.

    It’s event TV by SBS. Don’t give it away all in one week.

    Thoughts?

  5. Interesting review David.
    These docos are not at all pleasant, but I wish they could be made compulsory viewing for all Australians.
    How can anyone hold an opinion about anything before knowing all the facts?

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