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Port Augusta Housing Project  
This facility was built to house 64 people; children and families who were languishing in the notorious and now closed Baxter Detention Centre. The Port Augusta facility was re-opened in April 2010 and children are routinely brought here after time in detention on Christmas Island and in Darwin. 
Pamela Curr, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, April 18, 2010
Unaccompanied minors - called UAMS in immigration parlance but teenagers by the rest of us - will be put into the formerly called Port Augusta Housing Project. This is a group of demountable buildings surrounded by two fences between which is an electric sensor mat with an alarm system. Previously guards were constantly rushing to the houses because the electric alarms were activated after 8 pm. The small children did not remember this and sometimes opened the windows and doors which set off alarms. We do not know yet whether the old security system will be reactivated, but we do know that while the government will say these kids are not in a "detention centre" that they are being held under guard with an elaborate security system with no freedom of movement. The old adage - if it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck or in this case a detention centre - still stands.