Brisbane’s abandoned quarantine centre now has contamination views

Brisbane’s never-used quarantine centre, on Defence land in an industrial area next to Brisbane Airport, now offers views of dirt mounds contaminated with asbestos and other chemicals.

The Centre for National Resilience Brisbane at Pinkenba was officially completed on August 25 – less than a month after the Queensland government advised the Commonwealth it would no longer be needed.

An artist’s impression of the proposed Centre for National Resilience at Pinkenba near Brisbane Airport. 

Like the controversial Wellcamp quarantine facility near Toowoomba, and a soon-to-be closed centre in Melbourne, the Brisbane centre has been left without a purpose.

But after concerns the chosen site was contaminated, the surrounding Defence land is now being used to store vast mounds of tainted and potentially dangerous soil.

One corner of the site, the former Damascus Barracks, is still used as an immigration centre. Defence uses other areas for storage.

A spokesman for the federal Department of Finance, which financed the construction of the Brisbane centre, refused to say how much contaminated soil was now being stored on the site.

Large mounds of contaminated dirt have been stockpiled next to the quarantine centre at Pinkenba.

“There is no contaminated soil within the operational area of the centre,” the spokesman told Brisbane Times in a statement.

“Outside the centre, contaminated soil is being actively managed to ensure compliance with relative environmental standards, and work health and safety requirements.”

While Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has called on the Commonwealth to allow the 1000-bed centre to be used for crisis accommodation, the spokesman said only that the Queensland government was being consulted and “a number of future uses are under development”.

Being on Commonwealth land, the site does not come under the jurisdiction of Queensland’s environment department. The spokesman said the contaminated soil “does not need to be removed as it is being effectively managed”.

By contrast, on the other side of the river at Lytton, the environment department issued an environmental protection order to Viva Energy over a site contaminated with the chemical PFAS. Viva Energy took the matter to court and the environment department issued an amended order in August.