The Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre will be closed within two years and the land sold for development, bringing an end to the controversial centre’s troubled life.
Federal Immigration Minister Peter Dutton announced that the centre, on Hampstead Road in Maidstone, would be closed as would Sydney’s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre and the Perth Immigration Residential Housing Facility.
A spokesman for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection said the closures would be staged over 24 months as infrastructure is upgraded across remaining centres such as the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation centre in Broadmeadows.
There were 1679 people in Australian immigration detention centres as of March 31. They included 108 men and 16 women at Maribyrnong.
Residential development
The site, which originally opened in 1966 as the Maribyrnong Migrant Hostel, is next to the former Victoria University student village, which is also likely to be sold for residential development.
The Maribyrnong centre has attracted attention over its handling of violence against refugees by former prisoners awaiting deportation.
Drug use is reportedly rife and raids on the centre have uncovered illegal drugs, ice pipes and even a suspected ice laboratory.
