Baxter Detention Centre
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Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre or commonly just Baxter Detention Centre, was an
Australian immigration detention facility Australian immigration detention facilities comprise a number of different facilities located throughout Australia, including on the Australian territory of Christmas Island. Such facilities also exist in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, namely the N ...
near the town of
Port Augusta Port Augusta (''Goordnada'' in the revived indigenous Barngarla language) is a coastal city in South Australia about by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the ...
in
South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...
. It was the focus of much of the controversy concerning the
mandatory detention Immigration detention is the policy and practice of incarcerating both foreign national asylum seekers/refugees and immigrants — whether suspected of unauthorized arrival, illegal entry, visa violations, as well as those subject to deportation ...
of
asylum seekers An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A pers ...
in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
.


History

Baxter Detention Centre was named after the nearby Baxter Range, a geographical feature which in turn is named after the explorer John Baxter who, ironically, arrived in Australia as a
convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convicts ...
. It was located on a portion of the
Australian Defence Force The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the Armed forces, military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia and its national interests. It consists of three branches: the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army and the Royal Aus ...
's El Alamein Army Reserve that was nearest to Port Augusta. Following establishment expenditure of $44 million, Baxter Detention Centre became operational in September 2002. After it closed in August 2007, some of the buildings were removed and the land returned to the Department of Defence. In May 2008, a
public auction A government auction or a public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a governmen ...
was held for the surplus material remaining in the complex.


Facility

The centre was built by Fleetwood Portables in partnership with the Department of Immigration. Australasian Correctional Management was responsible for the administration of the centre.


Controversy

The centre suffered several arson incidents by protesting detainees, including on 12 November 2005, which caused extensive damage and forcing the evacuation of 58 detainees, of whom 4 were treated for smoke inhalation. Minister for Immigration,
Amanda Vanstone Amanda Eloise Vanstone (née O'Brien; born 7 December 1952) is an Australian former politician and a former Ambassador to Italy. She was a Liberal Senator for South Australia from 1984 to 2007, and held several ministerial portfolios in the ...
, said of the incident: "We don't expect however for people to resort to property damage as a way of handling that frustration and particularly property damage that can put the lives of others at risk."


See also

*
Baxter Protests During the Easter weekends of 2003 and 2005 in Australia, several hundred protesters went to the Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre, located near Port Augusta to protest against the Howard Howard is a masculine given name deriv ...
*
Cornelia Rau Cornelia Rau is a German and Australian citizen who was unlawfully detained for a period of ten months in 2004 and 2005 as part of the Australian Government's mandatory detention program. Her detention became the subject of a government inquiry ...
*
List of Australian immigration detention facilities This is a list of current and former Australian immigration detention facilities. Immigration detention facilities are used to house people in immigration detention, and people detained under the Pacific Solution, and Operation Sovereign Border ...


References


External links


Refugee Freedom Bus Tour 2002 of detention centres; streaming video
{{Coord, -32.542807, 137.678475, format=dms, type:landmark_region:AU-SA, display=title Immigration detention centres and prisons of Australia Defunct prisons in South Australia Eyre Peninsula 2007 disestablishments in Australia 2002 establishments in Australia