Those who have talked about life behind the fences tend to do so with the protection of voice distortion and pixilation. There is good reason for this: any government employee or contractor who leaks operational information about how we treat detained refugees is threatened with detention of their own – up to seven years in prison.
In July 2013, a moot appeal at the Victorian Supreme Court ruled that Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant and his co-accused, George Witton and Peter Handcock, were unfairly tried for crimes committed during the final part of the Second Boer War (1899–1902). The three soldiers were court-martialled for the murder of nine captured Boers, and Morant and Handcock were executed on 27 February 1902. Last year’s non-binding verdict – along with a recent two-part documentary, Breaker Morant …