Is Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), the US-owned company that runs the Woomera Detention Centre, attempting in its own way, as George Bush said in his recent State of the Union address, to "eliminate the terrorist parasites" to make our country safe? Could ACM be accused of committing acts of terrorism itself? Judge for yourself.

It must be remembered that acts of terrorism in Australia are illegal. It is illegal to murder, maim, torture or coerce people - and so it should be - and appropriately severe penalties already exist for these crimes.

Here is part of an eyewitness account from an Adelaide solicitor regarding facilities and conditions at the Woomera detention centre, courtesy of Julian Burnside QC (Barrister for the Victorian Council of Civil Liberties in the Tampa case): "…two working toilets for 700 people, both leaking (sand on the floor to ‘mop up’ effluent). Four working showers for 700 people. Hot water only available after midnight. Not allowed to take food from dining room for children or sick adults. No coffee/tea/food between meals, only water. No air conditioning or heating (daytime temperatures reach 45 degrees, at night it falls below zero). No fly screens (there are millions of flies). Inmates have to queue for meals, medical attention, and telephones (two for 1300 people) for up to two hours. Persons seeking medical attention (including painkillers for broken leg, raging fever, tonsillitis, etc) have to queue in the open for up to 1 ½ hours to obtain their medication in front of the nurse. Nails may only be cut by the nurse, who will do ONE person per day. Women must queue each day for their ration of tampons/disposable nappies. There is no baby food or formula (one woman with a six month old baby who was struggling to maintain breast feeding was advised to feed the baby powdered chicken stock mixed with water - no sterile equipment of course. Food is beyond description; many will not eat it..."

You can do the maths for yourselves of course, but I don’t think even Philip Ruddock himself could stand to wait in those sorts of queues, do you? Imagine the scenario: four minutes a day each for the toilet and eight for the shower (even less if everyone wants a hot shower, and kids will just have to learn to control themselves, won’t they?); two minutes to make a daily phone call (assuming you have a phone card or money); three and a half years to get your nails cut (forget about the facial and the foot massage); etc.

Is this description too sarcastic, too cynical? No, it’s real. It’s a fact of life for hundreds of unfortunate people - not ‘illegals’ or ‘aliens’ or ‘queue-jumpers’ or ‘potential terrorists’. Some of us think the real terrorists are the ones in the dark blue ACM uniforms who mistreat these helpless souls with daily, routine efficiency. Yes, the Americans are the masters of time management and their Australian employees are just, well, ‘doing their job’. Besides, Woomera would probably cease to exist if not for the detention centre.

No wonder people inside are resorting to extreme measures to get out or just to inform the world about their horrible plight. If you sympathise with the detainees then you may regard their actions as justifiable under the circumstances. You should be outraged, as many others are, at their brutal, hard-hearted treatment - far worse than that received by criminals within our jails. You’ll be of the opinion that the Government’s response so far is inhumane, morally indefensible and totally unacceptable.

Nothing like this has happened before in Australia and it has polarised the nation. Pollsters would have us believe that the majority of citizens are firmly behind the Howard Government. Yet such support, ‘overwhelming’ as it may appear to be, is not necessarily right. No more right than denying women the franchise, or taking Aboriginal children away from their families. Now the Government is proposing to pay Afghans to return home because ‘circumstances in Afghanistan have changed’. Certainly things have altered there, but are they better? The country is in ruins, destroyed by more than two decades of war; the countryside is inhospitable, being sown with a deadly crop of millions of landmines and devastated by years of drought; the tribal factions are still fighting each other; the ‘Coalition’ forces are engaged in daily battles with Taliban remnants. Who on Earth would want to live there now? Who could live there under these conditions? Mr Howard? Mr Ruddock?

We don’t have to wait for time or history to condemn the policies of the current Government. The detainees must not endure any more despair, trauma, suffering or terror, whether it be at the hands of an American company or at the hands of a ‘Coalition partner’.

One of the supreme ironies of this debate must be the position of the Mayor of Port Augusta, Joy Baluch. She doesn’t want any of the detainees from Woomera coming to her town. With a name like Baluch, it appears that she (or her husband) is a descendant of the original ‘Afghans’ from Baluchistan. Isn’t that just so typically Australian - the former immigrants seeking to keep the later ones out?

"Advance Australia Fair"? I don’t think so. Not any more.