Coroner & Legal
Half-cocked Feds stumped by heritage permit
A PLAN to house asylum-seekers in Tasmania has been delayed because the federal government does not have planning approval to construct a detention centre.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced early last month that 400 male asylum-seekers would be temporarily housed at converted army barracks at Pontville, north of Hobart.
He said the centre was to “brought online” this month at a cost of $15 million, and was expected to remain in opetration until October.
But Brighton Mayor Tony Foster said the government did not have planning approval when it made the announcement.
“My understanding is the federal government still have one permit to get, and that’s the Aboriginal Heritage Permit,” Mr Foster said today.
“I was told an archaeologist would be coming down this weekend.
“The construction period will take six weeks, so the earliest that we’ll see people transferred here would be late June, early July.”
Mr Foster said the federal government had been premature by announcing it would use the site.
“It would have been a normal planning requirement, so they probably went off a bit half-cocked in saying people would be here after Easter because it does take time to get the permits in place,” he said.
• ABC 7.30 Tas: Relics Destroyed
Published: Friday, May 20, 2011 7:30 AEST
Expires: Thursday, August 18, 2011 7:30 AEST
Relics at the site of roadworks on Bruny Island have been destroyed, prompting more calls for indigenous sites to be better protected in the future.
Tags: history, indigenous-culture, sacred-sites, urban-development-and-planning, federal-government, federal-state-issues, states-and-territories, laws, programs-and-initiatives, road-transport, aboriginal, indigenous-policy, tas