The first story begins in a three-bedroom Department of Housing house. Inside is a family of seven: single mother and six children aged three to 17. The house is in terrible shape, because the father, who abused alcohol and was violent, left without paying any of the DHS payments, dumping the mother with the accumulated debt. DHS will not do any repairs until the payment has been met.
The house is tiny. The mother shares her bed with four children, while the two teenagers live in the other rooms. There is no privacy, no quiet area for the older boys to study or be alone, little space for the younger children to play.
But they are not unhappy. This is far from the worst experience of their lives.
The eldest boy Juba, then aged five, and his mother, Esther, had to leave their village in South Sudan. After weeks of aerial attacks, the Sudanese army from the north was approaching to burn their village and kill the survivors.
So they began walking, in the general direction of a refugee camp they had been told about. They didn't know how far away it was or even if it really existed.
After days of walking along sandy roads in desert-like conditions, they sat down. They had run out of food and water and Juba could no longer go on. Esther laid him down in the grass. Knowing he wasn't far from death, she decided to run to find water. Juba recalls lying there, thinking he would die soon.
A few hours later Esther returned bearing milk from a cow that she had found. The milk saved Juba's life. Not long after this they arrived at a UN refugee-processing site and reunited with their extended family. They lived as urban refugees in Egypt before receiving humanitarian visas and being moved to Melbourne.
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The next story takes place at Dandenong Magistrates Court south-east of Melbourne. A young man in his 20s is facing charges of driving while under the influence of alcohol. He arrived in Australia with his mother and three brothers and sisters six years ago.
He remembers the civil war in his home country that left seven million people displaced, two million people dead and many more injured. He remembers the gunfire, the screams of women and children as they ran from their village. He remembers learning to handle a gun before he was a teenager, and walking incredibly long