One netfriend wrote:

From razor wire to electric fences Senator Kerry Nettle has cautioned against celebration at the closure of the infamous Woomera detention centre noting "There is little to celebrate from the transfer of asylum seekers from razor wire to electric fences," Senator Nettle said.

"In fact this move represents a step backwards in conditions for these detainees."

The Baxter detention centre is; * surrounded by a 9000volt electric fence, * divides and isolates detainees roughly by ethnic group, * does not allow for appropriate schooling * has no residential housing programme for women and their children.

"This 'Out of the frying pan into the fire' situation serves to highlight the fundamental moral bankruptcy of the mandatory detention system.

"This is a particularly bad outcome for those families in the Residential Housing Programme. Mothers and their children will now be put back into a detention centre or their partners will have to travel 6 hours (through the desert handcuffed in the back of a police van?) to visit.

"The Greens have been calling for the closure (not mothballing) of Woomera IDC for years, but as part of an improvement in conditions for detainees not a step backwards.

"Nothing in today's announcement indicates any change in the Minister's commitment to the coercive and punitive asylum seeker policy.

The Greens Refugee and Asylum Seeker Policy calls for an end to mandatory detention in favour of a community based model that respects the human rights of asylum seekers and refugees.

Another's response:

A similar situation happened when Curtin closed. Curtin was mostly seen as the worst place because of isolation, physical conditions and management style. The physical conditions were basic and not always the best. Baxter was new and rooms, toilets, facilities were physically an improvement. However the move showed that the physical conditions are a long way down the list of the detainees concerns. Most if not all of those who moved wanted to go back to Curtin!! As one can see on the DIMIA website (though I haven't looked lately) the design is several self contained compounds. Everyone is kept within these compounds as much as possible and can not see outside the compound except the sky. Women and children were allowed out (to another part of the centre) for education purposes for a fair part of the day. The men had to stay in their compound looking at grass growing or watching videos or playing ping pong except for about one ot two hours each day. If people did go to another part of the centre any windows to the outside world were blacked out. In Curtin they were in the middle of the bush and were fairly free to roam around the different parts of the centre and could always see through the fence to the trees.

Has the management style improved? The Curtin DIMIA manager and his assistant are running Baxter. At Curtin they created a violent and oppressive culture where bullies (amongst management and detainees) thrived and got what they wanted. Ask any centre that took ex Curtin people what effect it had and you hear there has been no end of trouble. No surprise that ex-Curtin people most probably orchestrated the new year fires at various centres except Villawood which probably heard about the others and decided to follow suit. At Baxter this management has better physical tools (the design of the new centre plus elctric fences and constant video surveillance) to do exactly as they did in Curtin.

The one factor that brings some hope is that there are great numbers of visitors going into Baxter, probably more so than Woomera and certainly more than Curtin (when I went to Curtin 15 months after it opened they said I was the first vistor they had).

According to DIMIA they do intend to have some residential housing programme from Baxter and some children going to schools outside the centre. Somebody in SA would need to say whether this is happening or not yet or a search of the DIMIA website may tell you.

Bottom line is that it is the ongoing psychological effect of indefinite detention that really hurts. It does not matter which centre they are in but Baxter is certainly not a great place to be.