Refugees who arrive at the centre as individuals generally live in pairs. A typical room in the Northwest Point facility features two bunk beds, a television, air conditioning, en suite and fridge.
“This is big enough for one, I reckon, that's just me,” musician Angry Anderson commented. “It is prison-like.”
Peter Reith had a more positive assessment. “It's probably in the top 10 per cent of detention centres in the world.”
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Mr Reith, Mr Anderson and fellow participant, former radio shock jock Michael Smith, were confronted by one asylum seeker living on the island who claimed to have been in mandatory detention for 19 months.
“Why some people go outside in two month, three month and four month, and some people have been here a long time?” he asked. “I am very depressed, I am not good.”
Allan Asher, a former Commonwealth Government Ombudsman, later wrote on Twitter that while others were allowed into the Christmas Island facility, he was denied access.
"As Ombudsman I exercised my legal right to inspect Christmas Island. As a participant in #GoBackSBS I wsa refused permission to enter," he wrote.
Visiting a section of the detention centre that houses families, outspoken comedian Catherine Deveny said the condition of the facilities was better than she expected. “My head has just been totally spun around. I expected that I'd find something more like a jail.”
Several asylum seekers staged a hunger strike on Christmas Island this week, in protest over government plans to move them to Nauru or Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.
Australia's policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers was introduced in 1992, and has been criticised by aid agencies, foreign governments and the United Nations.
Authorities have intercepted eight boats and about 580 asylum seekers in Australian waters this week.
Viewers respond to Go Back episode three:
