From Perth:
What strikes you first is the absence of sound. No music drifting from communal kitchens, no backpacks thumping down corridors, no multilingual laughter spilling onto the footpath. The doors of the Dolphin Retreat and the Wander Inn — two of Western Australia's busiest backpacker hostels — are shut, and the travellers who called them home are now scrambling for shelter.
Authorities moved to close both establishments after inspections raised serious concerns about the presence of asbestos in the buildings. For the dozens of international travellers staying at the hostels, the action was abrupt and unsettling, leaving many facing an immediate accommodation crisis in a region where budget lodgings are far from plentiful.
The decision to act swiftly reflects the gravity with which health regulators treat asbestos exposure. Once a favoured building material across Australia — cheap, durable, and seemingly miraculous in its properties — asbestos is now understood to be one of the most dangerous carcinogens in the built environment. Mesothelioma, the cancer most closely associated with fibre inhalation, can take decades to manifest after initial contact.
"Once you have it, it's with you for life," one person familiar with asbestos-related illness told reporters.
That sobering reality underpins the urgency of the closures. Whatever the inconvenience to travellers — and the disruption is genuine — the alternative of allowing guests to sleep, eat, and breathe in a potentially contaminated environment is unconscionable. The long-term healthcare costs associated with asbestos-related disease run into billions of dollars annually across Australia. Preventing exposure at the source is not merely a moral imperative but an economic one.
The Human Cost of Abrupt Closure
And yet the immediate burden falls squarely on the backpackers themselves — largely young, many from overseas, operating on tight budgets, with limited knowledge of their rights or the local accommodation market. For travellers working their way through regional Australia on working holiday visas, a sudden eviction can cascade into lost work shifts, missed transport connections, and financial precarity that undermines the entire purpose of their journey.
Advocates for itinerant workers and international visitors have long argued that Australia's budget accommodation sector requires more than reactive inspections when something goes wrong. They call for regular, proactive auditing of the buildings that house some of the country's most economically exposed temporary residents. The regulatory framework exists. The question is whether it is being applied with sufficient rigour before a crisis forces the issue into public view.
A Broader Reckoning for Ageing Backpacker Infrastructure
The closure of the Dolphin Retreat and the Wander Inn should prompt a broader examination of ageing backpacker accommodation across Western Australia. Where other buildings in the sector may harbour similar risks, the cost of delay — measured in human health and in disruption to the international visitors who contribute meaningfully to regional economies — is simply too high.
Reasonable people can disagree about the pace and scope of building audits, and about how the cost of compliance should be shared between operators, government, and guests. What is harder to dispute is that affected travellers deserve prompt support in finding alternative accommodation, and that the agencies responsible for building safety deserve the resources to act before asbestos becomes a headline rather than a routine inspection finding.
Originally reported by 7News.