Former public watchdog Allan Asher has criticised Australia's breathtaking ''flint-heartedness'' toward asylum seekers after returning from the sprawling squalor of some of the world's largest refugee camps in war-torn Somalia.
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The former Commonwealth and ACT ombudsman was one of six prominent Australians who travelled through dangerous regions in Somalia and Afghanistan as part of the SBS series Go Back to Where You Came From.
The second instalment of the documentary series, which airs tonight , follows Mr Asher and the other Australians, as they move in with asylum seekers living in Australia, and then journey across the world to gain a better understanding of the desperate and dangerous situations they've fled.
Mr Asher, who stood down as ombudsman in controversial circumstances last year, says he has become frustrated with vitriolic media coverage, a sense of ''moral cowardice'' by the federal government, and the lack of compassion and understanding displayed in the public debate on asylum seekers.
He journeyed to the failed state of Somalia, where nearly two million displaced persons are scattered in huge refugee camps without adequate water, food or safety.
The camps reinforced to Mr Asher the absurdity of the myth of an orderly queue for seeking asylum in Australia.
''You hear people say, once people reach asylum centres, why would they move on?'' Mr Asher said.
''One reason is because those places are themselves absolutely terrible,'' he said.
Mr Asher, travelled with model Imogen Bailey and former radio shock jock Michael Smith to Somalia and other African nations, before flying to Indonesia.
The trio then met up with the three other participants, Angry Anderson, Peter Reith and Catherine Deveny, before being put on an Indonesian fishing boat and sent out to sea toward Australia.
''There was no toilet, just a hole in the back of the deck,'' Mr Asher said.
''It was rocking about, there were no beds, there was no kitchen, so that was probably the worst experience for me,'' he said.
Mr Asher plans to use the documentary series to help Australia's youth gain a better understanding of the facts about seeking asylum.
He has already spoken at a number of Australian schools since the recording of the show.
''What I'm going to be urging is that ordinary people, once they form a view based on the real information, that they'll become active and they won't allow the shock jocks absolute freedom to deceive, dissemble and spray out their bigotry,'' Mr Asher said.
''It's time that ordinary people took over this debate and run it on a rational and humane basis,'' he said.
Go Back to Where You Came From will air at 8.30pm tonight on SBS ONE, and will be followed by a special episode of Insight.
