Chirsmas Is to fire up--official Detainees to have island paradise
By Mairi Barton
CANBERRA
DETAINEES will have ensuite bathrooms, a gymnasium and a library set amid a $219 million tropical island village to be built on Christmas Island this year.
Work will start within weeks on the detention centre. It will be 15km from the island's community on a 30ha former mine site at the north-west end.
The centre, which will be able to house 1200 people, will have eight schoolrooms, a 24-bed hospital and a Refugee Review Tribunal hearing room with video-conferencing facilities.
The first stage, with accommodation for 400 detainees, is due for completion this year. Builder Walter Construction Group is due to finish the complex early next year.
The Immigration Department's design brief for the facility, Australia's first purpose-built detention centre, says it will be operational for up to 30 years.
Conceptual pictures by architectural firm Philips Smith Conwell were shown to community groups during consultations held on the island by Immigration, Environment Australia and Walter Construction Group last week.
Island administrator Bill Taylor said the village concept was well received by community groups led by the Christmas Island Shire Council, Chamber of Commerce, Workers Union and the Chinese residents group.
Mr Taylor said some community representatives sought and got assurances about security and environmental protection issues.
"I have to say that the reaction generally is very positive," he said. "There is an emphasis on village living and it's unlikely you are going to see too much barbed wire or anything like that. It will be predominantly electronic surveillance."
The detailed design process is under way. The Immigration Department wants separate accommodation areas with interconnecting rooms set aside for family groups.
Higher-security detainees and those in quarantine or at risk of self-harm will be held in separate areas.
The design brief calls for an ensuite with shower, hand basin and toilet for every two adult detainees. All accommodation will have access to common areas with a television, video, fridge and drink-making facilities.
Each accommodation area will have a dining room, children's play area, communal rooms for games, reading or religious observance, access to the gymnasium and outdoor recreation areas.
Security at the centre is expected to be unobtrusive but it will be fitted with baggage X-ray machines, walk-through metal detectors, strip-search rooms, a closed-circuit television system and alarm systems.
The brief emphasises the need for robust fittings to withstand a high level of deliberate vandalism and abuse. It stipulates the need for landscaping and layout to stop detainees escaping, hiding or finding loose objects to use as weapons in disturbances and protests.
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