In less than two weeks the Pontville Detention Centre located in Tasmania will be closing.
The centre was opened as a six month solution to overcrowding in our detention centres, and at the time was meet with a bit of opposition as people thought the property value might go down and there could be riots and escapes.
Now our six months are almost over and the place is slowly being cleared out. One the bright side rather than moving all of the detainees to other centres quite a few have been granted either protection visas (the end goal), bridging visa (meaning they leave detention until they are finalised being processed) or community detention. On the sadder note most of the detainees will be moved onto another detention centre, one that does not have access to a large amount of visitors and support like here in Tasmania.
Over the last few months I have got to know some of the guys really well and I am really going to miss them but if they could all be released rather than relocated I would be stoked.
Chris Bowen needs to close Pontville to save face. He stated it would only be open for six months, and time is up. Let’s ignore facts like 230 people will lose their jobs and Tasmania will lose 1.3 million a month for our economy, let’s ignore that because in Tasmania we have plenty or jobs and money and can afford to be irresponsible in this regard. 15 Million dollars was spent in building this centre in order to make it run for only 6 months, but really let’s ignore this too because what is 15 million in regards to tax payer dollars. Another thing to ignore is the simple fact that we are not talking about a political stance we are taking about the lives of 400+ “legal” asylum seekers, people seeking a safe place to live for themselves and their families.
One of the first things that really hit me when I met these guys was I asked a really stupid question, I said to one of the fellows “So what do you think of this detention centre?” …….. Yeah great question, here you have a fellow who has escaped a dangerous country, was on a boat that sunk leaving Indonesia and after all of this arrived in Australia just to be imprisoned until they are processed which as this time was about a year and a half in detention.
His initial response made me feel like an idiot, “it is just another detention centre”. His second response made my heart cry, “at least here the guards call me by my name and not my boat number”. Not only do we keep these guys in detention for an indefinite amount of time without an end date, (At least people we in prison for crimes know when they are going to be released) but then we also take their name away from them.
I just don’t want to ignore all of this for the sake of one man’s ego.
And if you feel like signing a petition and stating for view on this please go here: Keep Pontville Open
TrojanLand 