General News
23 March, 2025
Suburbia no place for gaol
PREMIER David Crisafulli has promised that any new youth detention centres “won’t be dumped on peaceful suburbs”.
He told a media conference in Cairns that the government had to build more youth detention centres, but not in suburbia, such as at Edmonton or Gordonvale.
“What we don’t do is go and dump them on a community without talking to them, which is what we saw before,” Mr Crisafulli said.
“I have no appetite to dumping something on people’s doorstep without talking to them and, as we build more detention centres, they will be in areas that the community expect them to be – not in the middle of peaceful suburbs,” he said.
“It’s safe to say that that community was treated like a doormat and I know that (Member for Mulgrave Terry James) Terry’s not very happy with it and he’s made his views pretty clear to us.
“So, we have to build more capacity. There’s no ifs, buts or maybes. My first priority is protecting people.
“So I understand the pressure that watch houses, that detention centres are under, but it runs a distant second to the pressure that everyday Queenslanders are under, so we have a focus to deliver more youth detention. We have a focus to deliver different detention, which we’re calling regional resets, but we also have to do early intervention. Make no mistake, we are not going to continue to see victim numbers go the direction they have.”
Mr James said during door knocking in last year’s state election campaign he “copped a lot of flak” about a proposed detention centre in the Edmonton area which the previous Labor government was secretive about.
He said there would be no detention centres in suburban areas.
“This is a new government, a new investigation … it won’t be going in the middle of an urban area,” Mr James said.
He said when the department drew up a list of preferred sites, the public would be consulted, but he said he had no idea where the sites were at the stage.
Cairns Regional Council’s division 2 representative Councillor Matthew Tickner said it was an issue raised constantly during door-knocking while campaigning for the council last year.
He said he and most of the community wanted any detention centre away from residential areas.
Cr Tickner said the lack of consultation by the previous government was “poor”.
However, he said there was nothing that could be done about the youth drug and alcohol centre currently under construction in Mt Peter Rd, Edmonton.
Cr Tickner said he was on good speaking terms with the department who had assured him that it would be well managed.
Last year division 2 candidiate Steve Lippingwell organised a petition against the detention centre proposed for Edmonton. There were a total of 665 signatures and it was tabled in state parliament.
“Any site in Edmonton is unsuitable for a detention facility,” he said.
