FED:Govt announces new detention centre in Tas

AAP General News (Australia)
04-05-2011
FED:Govt announces new detention centre in Tas

By Adam Gartrell and Patrick Caruana

CANBERRA, April 5 AAP - The federal government will spend almost $15 million upgrading
a Tasmanian army barracks to house up to 400 asylum seekers for six months.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says the defence facility at Pontville near Hobart
will be up and running next month and will initially house about 250 single adult men.

The announcement comes as the government continues to look for ways to ease overcrowding
in its detention centres on Christmas Island and the mainland.

"The government has acknowledged the pressures on our detention facilities and this
new accommodation will help to relieve the strain on the system," Mr Bowen said.

The government says the centre - consisting mainly of army dorm buildings - will be
used for just six months while work is completed on new detention centres in the Northern
Territory and Western Australia.

Coalition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the government had announced new
detention centres in every corner of Australia.

"The only place they are not building a detention centre is in East Timor, which is
where they promised to build one," Mr Morrison said.

Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings has written to Mr Bowen seeking assurances that detainees
will be treated properly.

Ms Giddings said she was particularly concerned about how the asylum seekers would
be looked after during the region's notoriously cold winter.

"If there are to be detainees there on commonwealth land, I want to ensure that those
detainees have adequate heating, clothing and any other needs they may have," she said.

Federal independent MP Andrew Wilkie said he had concerns about the centre which would
sit just outside his Hobart-based electorate.

"I'll be holding the immigration minister, Chris Bowen, to his commitment that this
centre only be temporary," he said in a statement.

The Australian Greens said the move was a bandaid solution.

"Rather than tinkering around the edges, this failing system needs a total review and
overhaul," Greens' senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

Amnesty International's Graham Thom said the government should be looking for more
humane and cost effective alternatives to detention.

But local Brighton Council Mayor Tony Foster said he supported the plan and believed
his community would too.

Mr Foster even said he hoped he could take some of the residents on sightseeing tours
around the area, including to a nearby wildlife centre.

"I'm sure a lot of these people have never experienced something like that," he told the ABC.

The facility, in the Labor-held seat of Lyons, was previously used to house refugees
after the 1999 Kosovo crisis.

AAP ag/sb/ajw

KEYWORD: DETENTION WRAP

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