Ann Corcoran (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

I would appreciate some help with an apparent contradiction that I have in front of me here. The minister has announced that $5 million will be spent to build a new medical centre at Baxter and upgrade the kitchen, yet in the budget papers there is a note that the government will rationalise Australia’s onshore immigration detention network, resulting in savings of $78 million—which we have just been talking about—over four years. It includes the suspension of the use of the Baxter immigration detention centre. I am intrigued with the notion of spending $5 million to upgrade it but closing it down. I am not too sure which comes first and how those two statements can be reconciled.

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