Pinelands businesses “ecstatic” after youth justice facility project abandoned

THE Territory Government has scrapped its plans to build a new youth justice facility at Pinelands to replace the notorious Don Dale Detention Centre.

PINELANDS businesses say they have a long-term future again after the Territory Government scrapped its plans to build a new youth justice facility at Pinelands Industrial Estate.

The government’s plans to replace the notorious Don Dale Detention Centre with a new $70 million facility at Pinelands had cast a long shadow of the future of businesses in the area since October.

Top End Sign Sales owner Deb Taipale said businesses “could now breathe a sigh of relief”.

“We are more confident in our future now,” she said. “Since October we have all been worrying about what’s going to happen.

“This decision stops all the uncertainty and we can just get on with it and run our businesses now.”

If a youth detention facility was built at Pinelands, Ms Taipale said the area could have become a “ghost town”.

“Owners of the sheds had been told by their renters they wouldn’t renew their leases if the jail went ahead,” she said,

“So (the decision) means that those sheds won’t stay empty now and create a little ghost town.”

The notorious Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.

NT Planning Minister Eva Lawler said the decision to shelve the Pinelands project came in response to a Planning Commission report that found the site was strongly opposed with potential impacts to industrial land, traffic and essential services.

“One of the difficulties of government is that a complex build such as a youth justice centre is one of those things that aren’t welcome often in people’s next-door communities,” Ms Lawler said.

“Of 102 public submissions made after the announcement last August, 100 opposed building at Pinelands.”

It is understood the government will now consider walking away from plans to build any new facility as it seeks to rein in spending to deal with its Budget crisis.

The Government had committed to building a new youth justice facility following recommendations from the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the NT.

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But its decision to build the new centre at Pinelands — which was announced without any consultation — caused widespread community anger.

Pinelands business owners had threatened the Government with legal action if it went ahead with the move and hundreds of people attended community meetings voicing their concerns about the plan.

It’s understood the Government is now considering putting plans for a new facility on ice and banking the savings, with a vastly reduced amount of money instead to be spent either upgrading the existing youth justice facilities at Berrimah or building a far more modest new centre.

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While Pinelands businesses will welcome the decision, it is likely to anger youth justice advocates who have long argued for the closure of Don Dale.

The Royal Commission’s final report — delivered in November 2017 — recommended the immediate closure of Don Dale’s high security unit and a plan for closing the facility altogether to be in place by February 2018.

Youth detainees have been held at the facility — the former Berrimah adult prison — since former corrections minister John Elferink closed the old Don Dale Detention Centre in August 2014 after tear gas was used to subdue a group of rioting detainees. Those detainees had been held in the centre’s notorious Behavioural Management Unit for 17 days before the incident, which eventually helped spark the Royal Commission after footage of the tear gassing was broadcast on the ABC’s Four Corners program.

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While the Royal Commission deemed the current site unfit for purpose, a 2015 review by NSW juvenile justice expert Michael Vita found the facility could be appropriate if certain renovations and upgrades were made.

“In general, Berrimah YDC offers much more variety and infrastructure than the previous Don Dale,” he wrote in his report.

“It could quite easily be a medium-term possibility as a youth detention precinct with prospects for expansion.”

Keeping youth detainees at Berrimah, however, is likely to upset developer Halikos. It lodged a legal objection last year when the Government was planning to build a new youth justice centre at Berrimah, which is next door to its Northcrest housing development.

The Government later walked away from that plan and announced the Pinelands site, but denied this had anything to do with Halikos’s objection.