Keelong closing down

The Keelong Juvenile Justice Centre at Unanderra is to close, with detainees to be spread out across other centres as part of State Government cutbacks to be announced next week.The Mercury can reveal that the centre, which employs about 100 people plus school teachers, will be officially given the chop in Tuesday's mini-budget.Director-General of Juvenile Justice Peter Muir, accompanied by senior departmental staff and counsellors, delivered the news to staff yesterday morning.Keelong is the region's only juvenile detention centre.The Department of Juvenile Justice, which was asked to find $17.2 million in savings for the mini-budget, plans to close the centre in the first quarter of next year."They called us in and just dropped it on us. This has come out of the blue," a staff member, who asked not to be identified, said. "Everyone was stunned and I don't think many of us have much prospect of getting a job with the department in other areas."They told us that it would stay open at least until Christmas so that's some consolation I suppose."A department spokeswoman said about 80 new detainee beds would be created at other centres and used for the relocation of Keelong's 23 detainees.She said the department would be seeking voluntary redundancies and looking to relocate other employees. "Our hope would be that we would be able to keep everyone and redeploy them to other jobs within the department," she said.A youth worker from the centre said there are often more than 30 detainees and doubted whether other centres would have the facilities and support of Keelong.The Public Service Association has organised an urgent meeting with the department. Assistant general secretary Steve Turner said he had grave fears for the jobs."One hundred jobs is a lot," he said. "And when you think we are hearing about (government superannuation administration business) Pillar being privatised, that's more than 700 jobs you're talking about."A spokeswoman for Minister for Juvenile Justice Graham West said the centre was "old and outdated". "We will be redeploying staff within Juvenile Justice where possible."