19 October 2010 in Mayo News, Media
Speaking with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan on ABC 891 - Tuesday 19 October 2010
Topic: Proposed Inverbrackie detention centre
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Transcript
DAVID BEVAN
Jamie Briggs is the Liberal MP who represents that part of the world in Federal Parliament. He joins us now. Good morning Jamie Briggs.
JAMIE BRIGGS:
G’day Dave.
BEVAN:
Jamie Briggs, what are constituents telling you?
BRIGGS:
I think there’s a great deal of shock. We’ve had a lot of calls yesterday afternoon from people trying to find out basic information. Like the Premier, well unlike the Premier, I didn’t get a phone call; I saw the announcement at a press conference just prior to question time here in Canberra yesterday. There’s been absolutely no consultation. I’ve spoken to a primary school this morning, they’ve had no consultation. The community has had no idea that this was coming whatsoever and I think that is a disgrace – the fact that the community has not been consulted with and I’ve called on the Minister already to before they proceed with this to have a genuine community consultation to talk about the impact on services like schools, like health and hospitals, like the transport system. There is no public transport out to Inverbrackie. How these people to be getting to the services that they claim are so close to them which there actually not that close as you’ll know, they are at least sort of four or five kilometres away from any services at all. So there are a lot of…
BEVAN:
…it’s a lot better than Baxter. It’s a lot better than Woomera.
BRIGGS:
No what we’ve said is that this should all be done in a managed fashion before we get to this crisis. You’ll remember in the election campaign we made the point that Labor had lost control of the borders and this is an inevitable outcome of that lost control. They are in a complete panic to the fact that a Labor Premier didn’t even get a call and I do recall Mike Rann saying in 2002 that he no longer wanted South Australia to be a dumping ground for illegal immigrants. I was surprised that he was a bit more conciliatory just then given his strong words in 2002.
BEVAN:
I don’t think he’s too impressed without being told. He went out of his way to point out twice that Julia Gillard was in the Aldgate area the day before and that no a single thing was mentioned about this. So I think he’s sending a very clear message to Julia Gillard and the Federal Government he’s not impressed.
BRIGGS:
Well he should to. I mean I’m not impressed either and I don’t think the community’s impressed. This is not an issue about our compassion. This is an issue about the reality of the situation. This is going to cost $10 million according to briefings from the Immigration Department to the ABC yesterday, not even to the Premier or to the Parliament. So we don’t know where that cost is coming from. We don’t know what the security arrangements will be for the centre. It won’t just be open living. There will have to be some security arrangements because of course these people are still going through an immigration process.
BEVAN:
Jamie Briggs, thank you for your time. Liberal MP for Mayo.