After much press coverage and detailed questioning at Estimates, we’re still no closer to knowing why nearly 90 asylum seekers have ended up staying at a former miners’ lodge at Leonora, smack in the heart of the WA goldfields.
With all respect to the good people of Leonora, the town is a very long way from anywhere, and perches on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert.
The town is also a very long way from any support services that the detainees might need — the sort of services that would be available at large regional centres or in capital cities. The local school has room for the children accompanying the group, but, Crikey understands, not the extra resources needed, and no ESL teacher.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young tried to prise from Immigration Minister Chris Evans at Estimates recently the rationale for Leonora, and didn’t get far. Pressed on the rationale for the selection of sites to house families that could not be kept in the crowded Christmas Island facility, Evans was purposefully vague. “As you know, we require a whole range of services, so there are a range of considerations that the department take into account when making these decisions,” he told Hanson-Young.
Department of Immigration bureaucrats attending with Evans stressed the importance of accommodation that was suitable for families. “We are looking for more suitable longer-term arrangements for families as well as some temporary arrangements,” Evans went on to say. “I have a picture of the ideal solution, but I do not expect to find that, so we will find what we can make work best. As I said, the department is searching and responding to offers. We are in negotiations and discussions with some people about those things.”
“I struggle to see how housing families in the middle of the desert is either cost effective for the taxpayer or practical,” Hanson-Young told Evans.
“But putting people in a motel in the middle of Brisbane is not ideal either,” Evans replied.
Certainly not from a political perspective.
We asked the Department of Immigration about the rationale behind the selection of sites for “overflow” asylum seekers. Spokesman Sandi Logan replied that it was “the immediate need for accommodation that was suitable for occupation by families with children and offered the necessary infrastructure for support services. Accommodation availability and infrastructure for support services were the primary consideration, which is what was offered at the location. It is difficult to locate suitable properties that are readily available and meet all necessary criteria for our duty of care to detainees”.
“Many offers of sites have been made by a range of entities and the department continues to examine these.”
The story behind the Leonora facility is more complex than that, however. The facility is owned by a company called Tecline. Tecline already has a relationship with the Department of Immigration through a related company, NTLink, which provides accommodation facilities for the department on Christmas Island and to mining companies. Tecline and NTLink have a sizable presence in Leonora; two years ago NTLink pitched an idea to the local council to convert an old primary school in the town into more mining and tourism accommodation.
The department “became aware” of the facilities at Leonora through NTLink and its provision of services to the resources sector, Logan told us. The contract for the Leonora facility is a “short-term” one, he said. Media reports suggest it is for six months. The department would not reveal the cost of the contract on the grounds of commercial confidentiality.
Tecline was also contracted “to improve the facilities to meet the department’s needs including further provision of dining facilities and other amenities”. Normally, a contract such as that would, under Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines, be put to tender. However, the department “direct sourced” the services from Tecline, without tender, due to the urgent nature of the works required. That’s permitted under the CPGs, although the “urgency” of finding accommodation for “overflow” detainees has arguably been apparent for some months.
The bulk of the Leonora asylum seekers are said to be Afghani or Sri Lankan, with a small number of Iranians. As targets of the government’s suspension of applications from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, the group is at risk of being detained for longer than the normal time for processing claims, and perhaps longer than the six months apparently intended for the Leonora facility.
Bernard your description of Leonora ….”With all respect to the good people of Leonora, the town is a very long way from anywhere, and perches on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert.”…Is so misleading as to be rubbish.
The town is 3 hrs by an excellent sealed road from Kalgoorlie or half an hour by air. Kalgoorlie has a first class well equipped hospital and all the backup services which would be available very easily to the asylum seekers if required.
Your ..”perches on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert” gives the impression it requires a camel train to get to it. A little research would have given all the facts you required to write a more informed story. Remember Google is your best friend, if ignorance is what you rely on.
I suggest you had a motive for your tardy loose description, not entirely concealed in your article.
Could it be that the available and much more suitable army camps close to major cities Sydney and Melbourne have been passed over because the teddibly sensitive Defence Boffins wont accomodate women and children who have not beeen put through the ASIO tea strainer?
Guess we won’t know because ASIO wont talk, the Army wont talk and the Immigration department are too busy running around in circles.
Meanwhile nearly 200 unaccompanied teenagers are locked up in the construction camp on Christmas Island going crazy doing nothing- no school, computers unavailable and non-functionning, no space – crammed in dongas AND they are all in SUSPENDED ANIMATION – with no processing – no decision about their future. A tragedy in progress and no one has decided what to do with them except to predict sending them back to Afghanistan.
David – road trips in the back of vans driven by security guards have proved fatal in the past.
We can only hope that lessons have been learnt.
One positive is that the good folk of Leonora seem not to have been affected by the hate virus which afflicts so many in OZ these days.
Good on them for showing intelligence and compassion instead of knee jerk racism.
This whole farce is a direct response of the duplicity of the Rudd government on one hand in relaxing entry controls into Australia, and the ongoing mantra of denial that this has resulted in an influx of individuals seeking accelerated immigration into Australia. The majority of Australians do not want uncontrolled entry into this country but this is at variance with the Rudd government undertakings before the last election in relation to “asylum seekers”. As a consequence the Rudd government needs to “sweep this problem under the carpet” before the next election”.
As the detention centres (conveniently constructed by Howard government) are now full to overflowing, it is necessary to clear the decks for the the steady stream of ongoing inflow. What better way to try to hide the problem than to distribute the overflow into widely distributed remote locations well away from activists and journalists, notwithstanding the three-hour drive from Kalgoorlie.
The hypocrisy of the Rudd government is breathtaking. If they were true to their words they would just leave the gates open for any claimed asylum seeker to just “walk through the door” and sign up for social security benefits including low-cost housing. As this is would be electorally unpopular (especially with those Australians waiting for publicly funded accommodation) they will do their best to hide the problem until after the election.
Ah Greg
you live with delusions. Asylum seekers in Australia do not get Social Security nor low cost housing.
Some families get a small Asas payment through Red Cross but this is only available to a very few such pregnant women or families with small children or the sick and injured.
Most survive on edge of poverty with help from places like the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre with its food bank, daily lunch and counselling health and legal services provided by a small paid staff and 500 volunteers.
The volunteers are those good hearted generous folks in the Australian community who roll up their sleeves and give their time when their government falls down on the job- it was ever thus.