Fading up from darkness, a young woman raises a bow to her violin and begins to play a mournful melody. She's got shoulder-length black hair, half-up and half-down, and is wearing a sleeveless silver dress with sparkling crystals around the neckline. As she plays, brief flashes of pale light flicker over her, like the shimmer reflected from moving water.
As the melody comes to an end, the violinist draws the bow back and forth over the same string of her instrument, creating a single, sustained note.
As sound effects are added in, a cellist sitting on the left of the stage where the violinist is standing also begins to play. She's a young woman with spectacles and shoulder-length dark hair worn loose. She's in a pale collared shirt and beige pants, and is seated on a chair at her music stand.
There's also a young man seated at a piano in the background on the right, but the keyboard and his hands are obscured by a kind of console upstage from him. It has what looks like a monitor on top, but it's covered by a white sheet.
And in the centre another young woman is standing with her music in front of her, but no instrument. She's got brown hair feathered around her ears and neck, and is wearing linen pants and a white t-shirt with motifs of various figures doing stretches. She's half in shadow, her face is solemn and her head bowed, and she's holding her hands behind her back.
The flickering, rippling light moves over the ensemble on the stage, and it now appears to be a projection - of water, or something else with a rippling, shimmering surface. It falls across the faces and clothes of the group on the stage.
The man at the piano turns to face the console behind the sheet, then after a while turns back to the piano. He repeatedly shifts his attention between the piano and the console.
The woman in the centre begins to nod gently in time to the backing beat, and the rippling, blue-white light moves over her so that her solemn face can be more clearly seen, staring dreamily into the distance. She begins to sing.
♪ Your home is your body ♪
♪ Your home is your body ♪
♪ Your shame drives you home ♪
♪ Your home is your body and your body is gone ♪
♪ Your home is your body ♪
♪ Your home is your body ♪
♪ Your shame drives you home ♪
♪ Your home is your body and your body is gone ♪
The singer checks her music and then looks up and into the distance again, nodding in time to the music. The blueish light of shimmering projection moves and ripples over her.
♪ The sight of the sea ♪
♪ At the break of sleep ♪
♪ The sight of the sea ♪
♪ Your body is floating but your mind sinks deep ♪
The singer twists her body back and forth a little and nods her head in time to the music. She looks impassioned as she sings.
♪ Time decays and I'm alone, I'm alone and time decays ♪
♪ Time decays and I'm alone, I'm alone and time decays ♪
♪ The body moves the soul to sleep ♪
♪ Reaching out and out of reach ♪
♪ The walls grow thicker and days repeat, the way it is strangles my belief ♪
♪ The body moves the soul to sleep ♪
♪ Time decays and I'm alone, I'm alone and time decays ♪
♪ The walls grow thicker and days repeat, time decays and I'm alone ♪
♪ The way it is strangles my belief, I'm alone and time decays ♪
♪ Time decays and time decays, I'm alone and time decays ♪
♪ I'm alone and time decays, time decays and time decays ♪
♪ And time decays and time decays and time decays and time decays ♪
(VOCALS REPEAT)
♪ I'm alone and I'm alone ♪
♪ Days repeat and days repeat and days repeat and days repeat ♪
♪ Reaching out and reaching out ♪
(VOCALS REPEAT)
The singer rocks a little, tapping one foot as she cycles through the repeating lyrics. All three musicians are playing behind her with increasing intensity.
The singer, cellist and pianist all stop at once, but the violinist plays a sustained note that fades out as a voiceover begins.
NARRATOR: The children weren't like the children I'd seen before. Many of them had no hope. Many wanted to die. There is no 'us' any more.
The ensemble remains motionless as moving spotlights flash over and around them, lighting up different parts of the stage by turns.
As a tidal wave of immigrants sweeps away what's left of our national identity.
We went through the first gate, the second, the third, they were so angry.
And you are Africans, you come to our sea, you spoil it. Go back to Africa. I make no apologies for being upfront about the reality of the situation. It's the only way to prevent a tide of humanity surging through, changing it forever.
We were kept at sea while they built camps on Nauru but they were also waiting for the Taliban to be defeated so that our claims of asylum would be rejected. Nauru was no hell-hole, by any means - I've been there. If you like living in the tropic it's a very pleasant island.
I used to think I would die in this dark small room and nobody will find out for days. My life is hopeless too, I cannot take it out myself, no one wants it, anything to do with it, it is just hanging and I am waiting.
The singer's solemn face, glimpsed in flashes of light, gazes upwards and into the distance.
I don't want Australians who are in the waiting lines at public hospitals kicked off those waiting lines because people from Nauru and Manus are now going to access these health services.
My father died, I was not there. My mother passed away. I could not meet her, I could not work because of my kidneys. I cannot see anything from here, I have lost everything.
This is a stupid film. It is written by people who haven't got the faintest idea how this works.
It's not fair, these people are cun... conning us.
The singer remains standing still but breathes deeply in and out in time to the breathing sound effect that's playing. Her shoulders rise and fall with each breath.
The soldiers would wait for them to go to the bathroom and then they would grab them. Some who resisted were beaten with batons.
I thought I would never leave this place. I was praying so hard. Jesus knew there was a place for everyone and it's not necessarily everyone's place to come to Australia.
It was horrible. Please let us go away from here. Paedophiles, rapists and murderers. Now the children wake up in the night screaming, thinking that the guards are by their beds. They hate Australia but not Australians.
I thought Australians had a love of humanity but they smash my dreams.
This small dark room, this place is Australia itself. This, right here, is Australia.
The lights continue to flash for a moment after the voiceover finishes, then the stage goes dark and the violinist begins to play her mournful melody again.
After a moment the rippling, shimmering projection returns, and the cellist joins in with the violinist. The singer stares sadly down at her music stand, and the man at the piano is now facing the console again.
The cellist sways a little with her instrument, and at times closes her eyes, appearing to lose herself in the music. A close-up of the violinist's hands show her fingers applying a wavering pressure to the strings to create vibrato.
As the music fades out and the violinist plays the final note of the piece, she looks down at her bow sliding along the strings to its very tip.
Fade to black.
