Hansard debates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) — (12 955) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Planning. The action I seek is a reference to Heritage Victoria to conduct a new assessment of the history and heritage of the site in Camp Road, Broadmeadows, and to provide a view for appropriate development within this complex featuring the Maygar barracks. The reason I am making this call is that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection has made a submission to the Australian government and a federal parliamentary committee about its plans to build a $29 million detention centre for high and extreme-risk offenders in one of Victoria's most disadvantaged communities, which is undergoing a population boom.

The Turnbull government's plan to construct a detention centre for convicted paedophiles, drug traffickers and members of outlaw bikie gangs is in my view fundamentally flawed, inappropriate and wrong on economic, social and heritage grounds. The reason I am raising this is that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection submission declares there are no known heritage issues that are required to be addressed in relation to this proposal, yet they want to build a 140 hardened-bed detention centre adjacent to the Maygar barracks, from where the diggers, light horsemen and Victoria Cross winners were dispatched to fight at Gallipoli and the Western Front.

Is Australia's government using wilful blindness to ignore the significance of this nation-defining heritage, or is the department adopting alternate facts — the flip side of reality — to avoid scrutiny? The area is also significant for Australia's postwar settlement. Part of the compound was converted into a hostel where wave upon wave of migrant families answered Australia's call to populate or perish. There were large numbers of Turkish families who first called Australia home within this complex, so it has a rich heritage and significance.

My argument is that the $29 million could be much better invested, along with the unspent $1.324 billion that has been identified to help supply-chain companies survive the demise of Australia's automotive industry. Broadmeadows has been hardest hit by the closure of the Ford Motor Company, the end of car manufacturing and the deindustrialisation that is going through Melbourne's north. My submission is that what we really need is a city deal for economic and cultural development with the federal government and, dare I say it, to have the $29 million and at least some of the unspent $1.324 billion reinvestment for that three-word slogan that was the election promise of the federal government: to deliver 'jobs and growth'.

This is the community where it is needed most, and it cannot be seen to be again treated as a dumping ground for these sorts of issues. There is an alternative way that I have put up to address this issue so that this detention centre does not have to be built. We can make much greater value from this significant and strategic site.