Australian refugee facility "national disgrace": mayor

An Australian detention center earmarked to house Syrian refugees has been slammed as a "national disgrace".

The mayor of the Tasmanian town of Brighton, Tony Foster, has visited the Ponville immigration detention center in Tasmania and was incensed by the current state of its facilities.

The small island state of Tasmania will resettle 500 of the 12, 000 Syrian refugees which the Australian government has agreed to accept.

Before arriving to assess the facility, Foster and the Labor government had been mounting a case for the center to be used to house a portion of the Syrian arrivals.

However, a first-hand look left Foster less than impressed.

"Really a national disgrace is the way I would actually describe it. It really looked like a derelict prison rather than I guess the way I saw it in its former state when it was used for the detention of asylum seekers," Foster told the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) on Thursday.

Foster was touring the facility as a potential buyer but its dilapidated nature has turned him off the idea.

"Any interests I think that Brighton Council had in taking over the building or being involved in it for community use some way, it's completely now been taken away from our thoughts," Foster said.

"It would take millions of dollars in our view to resurrect it to where it would be in any shape or form to be able to use for any community use at all.

"(It's) very disheartening to see that taxpayers of Australia's money has been wasted the way it has and to see that it's been dismantled." Endi