VIC: Victoria prepares for Kosovo refugees

AAP General News (Australia)
04-08-1999
VIC: Victoria prepares for Kosovo refugees

By Heather Gallagher and Ilsa Colson

MELBOURNE, April 8 AAP - Victoria is already preparing for the arrival of Kosovo refugees
amid warnings from experts that more planning for their care is vital.

Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett said a task force had already begun assessing various
accommodation options for the refugees, who could arrive as early as next week.

An air force base at Point Cook, south-west of Melbourne, and a former World War II migrant
hostel at Bonegilla, near the Victorian-New South Wales border, were the two obvious options,
the Premier said.

However Professor Lenore Manderson (Lenore Manderson), an expert in immigrant health
studies from the University of Melbourne, said Australia had a history of giving political
refugees amnesty and then failing to address their needs.

"I'm pleading for people to start organising so all of Australia can be reassured that this
next group (of refugees) are not going to be brought to Australia and dumped," she told AAP.

News of the impending arrival of refugees drew a mixed reaction today.

The local council covering the Bonegilla site, the City of Wodonga, said it would happily
support plans to help the refugees but it had not yet received word from the state and federal
governments.

"Once the federal government has told us what it wants, we would be quite willing to work
with it to assist," Wodonga chief executive officer Peter Marshall told AAP.

Point Cook local municipality, the Wyndham City Council, said while it supported the
federal government's move to accept the refugees, it did not think the airforce base - on
Commonwealth land - was appropriate to house them.

"I'm not sure there would be adequate services available at Point Cook ... they'd have to
build a new temporary city at that location, which may not be consistent with the flying
operations that operate there," Wyndham mayor Frank Purcell told AAP.

Mr Kennett said options were under examination for accommodating anything from 100
refugees to the total 4,000-plus that Australia has agreed to take.

"We can work with the local community here - the Albanian and non-Albanian community - to
give them solace and try and repair some of the incredible emotional damage that has been
done," he told radio 3AW.

Professor Manderson applauded Mr Kennett's actions, but was not impressed with the idea of
using internment and army camps as accommodation, describing the proposal as "chilling".

"If Victoria is saying 'we'll help', the state and federal government have got to get into
a room together with the communities who know about the people who are coming," she said.

Immediate consultation was also vital with immigration officials, health services,
interpreters and counsellors.

Wodonga's Peter Marshall said defence force accommodation was still available on the
Bonegilla site, but it was unclear how many people it could house.

The Albury-Wodonga area had a strong tradition of supporting refugees, with many immigrants
settling there after the 20-year-old Bonegilla hostel closed in the 1970s, he said.

The two cities also offered a multicultural resource centre with a program specifically
designed to support refugees, while many local people had already said they were prepared to
take part in a billet program.

AAP hmg/ra/imc/er/it

KEYWORD: KOSOVO VIC NIGHTLEAD

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