It seems passing strange that the Victorian government’s arbitrary detention of its citizens, desperately flying home after Christmas, appears to have gone unnoticed by the nation’s usually vociferous defenders of human rights. The silence of the ABC has been deafening, given the lengths to which its journalists normally go to seek out the stories of those who are prohibited entry to Australia and the alacrity with which they broadcast the accounts of cruel and unusual detention at the hands of heartless bureaucrats.