Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

The 'Children Overboard' affair is the exemplary case of such a government controlled propaganda exercise which inaugurated a systematic process of suppression of information, lies, deception and racial vilification.

An election was approaching in Australia in 2001. The Australian government accused asylum seekers - referred to as 'boat people' - of throwing their children into the sea in order to gain entry to Australia. They were also accused of being potential terrorists. They used the 'children overboard' lie to incite racial hatred within Australia which was directed at asylum seekers and Middle-Eastern people in general. Asylum seekers were placed in detention centres such as Woomera - in the desert of central Australia - where they were assigned a number, by which they were referred to instead of a name. Conditions were particularly harsh and they were, and still are, treated as criminals, many suffering severe psychological damage. The government won the ensuing election.

Howard: 'I don't want in Australia people who would throw their own children into the sea - I don't'.

'I certainly don't want people of that type in Australia - I really don't'.

References to the Third Reich propaganda continue.

Howard: 'I can't describe how angry I am when I hear people describing detention centres as "concentration camps"'.

Australian detention centres may not be as extreme as Nazi camps, they are certainly quite severe enough to turn inmates into traumatised and de-humanised beings.

Work Details

Year: 2003, this version: 2010

Instrumentation: Recorder in C, audio backing.

Duration: 9 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

Prizes/Awards:
Short-listed for Best Composition at the 2005 Sounds Australian/APRA awards.