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Airdate: Go Back To Where You Came From

Billed as a 'Television Event' this documentary series during Refugee Week will air across 3 consecutive nights.

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SBS will surely be the talk of the nation when it airs the ambitious documentary series Go Back To Where You Came From during Refugee Week.

I’ve only seen a 9 minute DVD preview of this, but already it looks utterly compelling.

Billed as a ‘Television Event’ this will air across three consecutive nights as 6 Australians take a “leaky refugee boat” from Darwin, when they are rescued mid-ocean. They will witness first-hand scenes in Malaysia, Kenya, Jordan, the Congo and Iraq.

Go Back To Where You Came From follows six ordinary Australians, of varying ages and backgrounds, who agree to challenge their preconceived notions about refugees and asylum seekers by embarking on a confronting 25 day journey. Tracing in reverse the journeys that refugees have taken to reach Australia, the series features unprecedented access to some of the most dangerous and desperate corners of the world.

Deprived of their wallets, phones and passports, the participants board a leaky refugee boat, are rescued mid-ocean, experience immigration raids in Malaysia, witness sheer desperation in Kenyan refugee camps and visit slums in Jordan, before ultimately making it to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Iraq, protected by UN Peacekeepers and the US military. For some of the Australians it’s their first time abroad. For all of them, it’s an epic journey and the most challenging experience of their lives.

Matt Campbell, Director of Television and Online Content, SBS, says that Go Back to Where You Came From will challenge perceptions of what it means to be a refugee.

“Go Back to Where You Came From is a powerful documentary, the scale of which has never been seen or attempted in Australia. It will tackle controversial questions about refugees and asylum seekers – whether there is a right or wrong way of coming to Australia, if any refugees and asylum seekers should be sent back to where they came from, and who deserves protection in Australia.”

Peter Newman, SBS Commissioning Editor added, “We’re taking the important debate about refugees and asylum seekers from the pages of newspapers to the living rooms of Australia, in a confronting and compelling way.”

It airs 8:30pm Sunday June 19 – Tuesday June 21st on SBS ONE.

25 Responses

  1. The earth cannot support 7 billion people……….. Australia should stop all immigration
    except for the nations that have a one child per family policy
    Even if you let in all the displaced people the problem still wont go away because the population will double and then triple.
    The only solution is to sterilize the males to hold the world population

  2. @Jeremy
    Jeremy, fair dinkum … if you ponder on your comment, even for a very short time, you can ridicule it quite easily.
    Mate, why do you backdate your God-driven melting pot chronology to a mere ’60-70′ years? If you had conviction, you’d backdate it to 1788! Could it be that you wish to not include your own forefathers into the debate? Pfft …
    And since you’ve brought God into it, well, some might argue that God gave us the ability to actually find the means to inhabit other places on the planet. He showed us how to construct boats (remember Noah?) … and possibly the universe. Hell, can you imagine the day when SBS commissions the show ‘Go Back To Your Own Planet’. You’ll pop a gasket.
    The show hasn’t even aired yet, and the racists are already getting in for their chop.

  3. My, Seems that their are a lot of racist comments already and the show has not started.
    Hope none of them have to go back to where their ancestors came from.

  4. @Jeremy

    “is simply an evolutionary reaction to one species encroaching on another species habitat, nature (or God) gave us races, cultures and different genes for a reason”

    Did you know that there are more genetic differences between dog breeds than races of human? A different race of human is not a different species, therefore your comment makes no sense. The genes that differ from myself and someone who is not caucasian are just as diverse as the genese between two white people.

    @MuchoTB

    The title speaks the exact words that many Australians speak. It also demonstrates the theme of the show – people going back to where refugees have come from.

  5. Oh I’ll watch this show, but I doubt it will change my own opinions on the matter. When will the bleeding hearts learn that xenophobia or “racism” as they so often like to label others as being while at the same time maintaining a superiority complex, is simply an evolutionary reaction to one species encroaching on another species habitat, nature (or God) gave us races, cultures and different genes for a reason, why should we just all mix together those things in the past 60-70 years which have taken the past 200,000+ years to evolve, create and seperate?

  6. Although I do feel for these people, the reality is that with the global population predicted to be between 7.8-10.5 billion by 2050, and 70% more food required to feed these numbers, you would be naive to think that this problem wont proportionally increase alongside these figures.
    As an Australian teaching in East London, I believe that it would be wise for Australia not to follow in the motherlands footsteps.

  7. Anyone remember that show years ago which divided people into blue eyes and brown eyes in order to teach them about racism? I’m sure that rated through the roof for SBS. People will tune in for different reasons but I expect the ratings overall will be quite high, especially when more reviews and previews come in.

  8. I agree that this will get a huge reaction from the 2GB-News Limited crowd, calling for SBS to be shut down, etc… But I don’t think the ratings will reflect it. As Kev wrote before, I’m sure it’ll be mostly preaching to the converted.

  9. I’ll be watching because it seems very worthy television. But I’m a little concerned about how they’re treating Dateline this year. That’s now the fourth time they’ve suspended Dateline for something else.

    I don’t have a problem with the program title, ‘Go Back To Where You Came From,’ because that’s what racists say all the time.

  10. Considering how anti-refugee the vast majority of the media seems to be in this country, a dose of “refugee advocate propaganda”, as someone called it, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’m not sure how this will work as television, though. I hope SBS doesn’t try to fight sensationalism with more sensationalism. (The title is pretty emotive, but I guess they feel it needs to be to get people to tune in who wouldn’t usually watch this type of thing?). If this program inspires a little more empathy or takes some of the hysteria and misinformation out of this issue then that can only be a good thing. Then maybe the next time a politician starts banging on about us being “swamped” as though it’s the biggest problem facing this country more people will turn around and tell them to concentrate on really pressing issues like health or education or the environment.

  11. @Kenny

    That’s not quite correct. If someone arrives in Australia by plane and asks for asylum, they are not flown back to Indonesia if they don’t have legitimate documentation. They have their cases assessed in accordance with the Convention, because we are signatories. Exactly the same process if they arrive by boat.

    Indonesia isn’t a ‘safe haven’, as such, because Indonesia is not a signatory. If they stay in Indonesia, they are either locked up or are stuck in the community unable to work for up to 10 years before a country, like Australia as one of the few who do have humanitarian programs, can take them. That is no life to live for an individual, or for a family.

    We take so few people and I’m a little surprised at the lack of compassion people show in this regard.

    In any case, this will all be moot in a couple of months when the arrivals dry up.

  12. I will watch but my views will not change. They come to Australia from Indonesia. They are leaving a “safe haven”. If they arrived without documents on a flight from Indonesia (fake docs destroyed in transit) and were claiming asylum from some third country they would be flown back to Indonesia at the airline’s expense.
    -and – “if you arrived in a country without sufficient money”. Never watched Border Security or the NZ version, or the UK version. Happens to young white Aussie girls all of the time, especially arriving in London.
    Yes, the “long hair” thing is/was Singapore.

  13. @JasonD, at the risk of labouring a point, you’re calling many asylum seekers “bogus” who ultimately end up being assessed as genuine refugees. That doesn’t make sense. And I was really just taking exception to your use of the term “economic migrants”, which just sounds mean spirited, not to mention inaccurate.

  14. @Jason D

    The passports are ‘dumped’ because they are almost always fake.

    I’d love for someone to tell me how someone who is being persecuted by their own government is supposed to go down to the local government office and ask nicely for a passport and visa to Australia.

    Just think about it for a second. If people had legitimate passports and visas they could just board a plane for Australia and seek asylum when they arrive. As everyone is aware, it would be much cheaper that way. The point is they don’t have proper documentation because they’re living in shitholes where they can’t just go and get documents from the local passport office. That’s why they have to pay people smugglers to get them fake passports and bribe immigration/customs officials along the way.

    Now, that’s not to say we’ve never received actual economic migrants by boat – we have a few times actually. Generally, they are Indonesians who arrive by boat thinking they can come here to work. Since they aren’t seeking asylum, they are quickly shipped back to Indonesia. That’s what happens.

  15. @ Kev – true but at least the 6 people taking part in the show will have experienced it and then maybe they will pass on what they have learnt to other misguided persons.

    The only way to change the negative attitudes people have is to educate them – something that just is not happening on any sclae it would seem. The stuff that comes out of some peoples mouths is unbelievable, my personal favourite is the one’s that cannot even spell “Asylum” (it has one S, not two, you aren’t seeking refuge from your ass!!)

  16. @Trix
    80% of asylum seekers to Australia dump their passports and documents after arriving to Indonesia by air. So a lot of bogus asylum seekers are being given the benefit of the doubt. Source – France24 ( france24.com/en/20110507-asylum-seekers-australia-dump-passports-report).

  17. I have a feeling this show, no matter how worthy, will simply be preaching to the converted, so to speak. The “turn back the boats” brigade are hardly likely to watch it or change their attitudes.

  18. @Jason D, or you could just watch the program and then make a judgement, though sadly it looks as if you already have. And to call refugees who arrive by boat “economic migrants” is just crap, considering the majority are found to be genuine refugees and are allowed to settle here. If you’ve ever chatted to any former refugees from many of the Middle Eastern countries, there’s simply no viable way to apply as a migrant, economic or otherwise.

  20. Legend has it that several decades ago, if you arrived in a country without sufficient money in your wallet and you had long hair, your passport was stamped “Suspected Hippie Itinerant Traveller” S.H.I.T. and you were put on the next plane leaving the country, to anywhere. You became “somebody else’s problem”. An early “turn back the boats” policy. We’ll see how much has changed, or hasn’t.

  21. From the promo I have seen , this just looks like refugee advocate propaganda. The problem we have in Australia are bogus claims of asylum from economic migrants arriving illegally based on opportunism. The show will probably choose the worst case scenarios to portray all asylum seekers. I don’t think anyone has a problem with people who are genuinely fleeing persecution. But this concept seems rather weighted, just from the promo.

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