Last year’s Go Back To Where You Came From was, without question, one of the most compelling television events of 2011. The three-part documentary series followed six diverse Australians on a 25-day ‘‘reverse refugee’’ route through war-torn countries, immigration raids and refugee camps.
It stimulated debate and discussion; became the number one trending topic on Twitter globally; won awards ranging from a Logie to the prestigious Golden Rose at Switzerland’s Rose D’Or Festival and, most pleasingly, each episode increased its viewership culminating in the series being SBS’s most-watched program of the year.
While on a good thing, SBS announced plans for a second instalment that would move its focus away from the ‘‘ordinary’’ Australians of last year’s series to high profile – and in some cases controversial – figures.
While the participants may have changed, the aim of the program hasn’t. It is a thought-provoking and often challenging few hours of television, this time centered in two of the world’s most dangerous cities – Somalian capital Mogadishu and Afghanistan’s Kabul.
The six participants include former Rose Tattoo singer Angry Anderson (who is planning to enter politics for the Liberal Party … what ever happened to being a rock’n’roll outlaw?) to columnist and stand-up comic Catherine Deveny, ex-Commonwealth Ombudsman Allan Asher and former Liberal Party defence minister Peter Reith.
In the first episode, the group is stripped of its wallets and phones and sent to live with resettled asylum seekers in Australia.
Reith, Deveny and Anderson end up in Dandenong, where they meet Hamid, who fled Afghanistan leaving behind his wife, daughter and mother.
Anderson – whose early message was a succinct ‘‘stick your illegals up your arse’’ – is moved by the story but later admits that the fact Hamid entered the country illegally is a ‘‘big hurdle’’ for him to get over.
The series moves at a rapid pace; participants flown to Somalia or Afghanistan, where they encounter poverty, homelessness, danger and desperation. In a moving scene, Reith meets a former refugee who tried to enter Australia, only to be sent home, under the Howard government’s reign.
Tonight, participants come face to face with riot victims, starving children and a refugee camp on the Ethiopian border.
Tomorrow the six reconvene to Indonesia where they board a fishing vessel to Christmas Island. Once there, SBS has unprecedented access within the detention centre.
On Friday night Jenny Brockie will host a one-hour Insight special featuring the six participants and a studio audience. It will cap off what will be an unmissable week of TV.
SBS, 8.30pm, nightly until Friday.
