The campaign against the proposed Werribee South youth detention centre is gaining traction – but there’s still a long way to go, say Wyndham council and residents.
Nearly three weeks after announcing its plans to build a $288 million high-security youth prison in Hoppers Lane, Werribee MP Tim Pallas and Youth Affairs Minister Jenny Mikakos met Wyndham council and community members on Friday to discuss the reasoning behind its preferred location.
Wyndham council chief executive Kelly Grigsby said it appeared the state government was genuinely open to the idea of an alternative site after providing the council the site selection criteria last week.
She said the council was assessing the viability of a number of sites – both in and outside of Wyndham – for the youth prison, and would meet Mr Pallas and Ms Mikakos again in the next fortnight.
But it seems likely that any alternative location would not be far from the original site, with a spokesman for Ms Mikakos saying the government would “continue to work with council to assess the suitability of alternative site locations within Wyndham City”.
The spokesman did not specify why the facility had to be in Wyndham.
Ms Grigsby, Speak Out – Wyndham’s Voice president Lisa Heinrichs and Werribee South Ratepayers Association president Joe Garra, who also sat in on the meeting, said the community would continue to fight until the government decided it would not build the youth prison in Werribee South.
Ms Heinrichs said it had been made clear the community would not accept the Werribee South location.
“As far as we’re concerned, we’re still going full steam ahead with the campaign until we have in writing that it will not be built in Werribee South,” she said.
The Speak Out group is finalising plans for a second community rally and protest to be held on the steps of Parliament House towards the end of March.
A date for the rally is expected to be announced later this week.
Dr Garra said he had been concerned to learn that the government had not done an economic analysis of what impact the youth prison would have on the East Werribee Employment Precinct or the tourism precinct.
“Their lack of knowledge of the area was astounding,” he said.
“It was unbelievable what they didn’t know.”
Dr Garra said the group was told that a summary of the Werribee South business case would be released sometime this week.
The government’s business case for the site came under close scrutiny last week when Mr Pallas stated in Parliament on Wednesday that Werribee South was not among the initial sites considered, before retracting his comments later in the day.
Mr Pallas’ office and the state government’s suburban media adviser ignored Star Weekly’s calls for the business case to be released in light of last week’s bungle.
Meanwhile, Benalla mayor Don Firth wrote to Euroa MP Stephanie Ryan last week requesting that his region be included in the discussion for alternative sites. Cr Firth said Benalla unsucessfully advocated for a prison in its area more than a decade ago, with land put aside for the project still available.
Gippsland South MP Danny O’Brien called on the government to consider building the youth prison on vacant land adjacent to the existing Fulham Prison near Sale.
