Jay Weatherill and Daniel Andrews offer up relief to refugees

Two premiers have opened their doors to Syrians fleeing the Middle East conflict.

Two premiers have opened their doors to Syrians fleeing the Middle East conflict, offering temporary housing to potentially hundreds of refugees and placing added pressure on Tony Abbott to lift Australia’s overall refugee intake.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews wrote to the Prime Minister offering the army base at Puckapunyal in central Victoria as a potential resettling site for Syrians as South Australia’s Jay Weatherill told Mr Abbott the former Inverbrackie immigration detention centre in the Adelaide Hills was “ready to go”.

In a letter to Mr Abbott, Mr Andrews urged the Prime Minister to increase the number of refugees accepted in Australia to ensure Syrian refugees in need of protection were additional to the annual intake.

“To this end, I would encourage the federal government to consult with Victoria and the settlement agencies in developing any arrangements,” Mr Andrews writes in the letter.

“This may include the temporary housing of refugees in defence facilities, such as Puckapunyal Army Base, before they are settled in the wider community.”

He dismissed state opposition calls to use the Point Nepean Quarantine Station which housed 300 refugees escaping the Kosovo conflict in 1999, saying it was no longer suitable for temporary housing.

South Australian Labor Premier Jay Weatherill offered temporary housing at the former Inverbrackie immigration detention centre in the Adelaide Hills.

Inverbrackie was originally built as a cluster of 80 houses for defence families but in 2010 the federal government announced it would be upgraded to use as low-security immigration detention housing. The centre was closed in December and it is expected to be advertised for public sale within weeks.

Federal Liberal MP Jamie Briggs, whose Mayo electorate incorporates Inverbrackie, said a significant amount of work would be needed to make the centre habitable and that the intention of resettlement was not to “put people in camps”.

“The suggestion that Inverbrackie can just sort of be opened up overnight and used … doesn’t understand that there would be a significant amount of work required to get the houses back up to the standard that you would be happy with people to live in,” Mr Briggs said.

“Secondly we don’t need to put people in camps when we’re taking them through the UNHCR process. We detain people when they arrive illegally by boat … that’s why they go into these sorts of facilities and in that sense I think the proposal from the Premier’s a bit odd.”