The following Press Council decision appears in today’s Murdoch Australian newspaper: The Australian Press Council has considered complaints by Dale Mills and Vivienne Porzsolt about headlines on articles in The Australian on July 28, this year related to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign that is aimed at businesses associated with Israel. One complaint related…
Showing all posts in June 2019
Fightback against privatisation grows
One (via the Guardian): The first private company to take over an NHS hospital has admitted in a document seen by the Observer that patient care could suffer under its plans to expand its empire and seek profit from the health service. Circle Health is already feeling a strain on resources due to its aggressive…
Government rules; how the Australian immigration department treats us with contempt
Following last week’s exclusive in New Matilda publishing the British multinational Serco immigration detention contract with the Australian government, the Immigration Department was asked a range of questions. This is how they responded (thanks to Marni Cordell and Paul Farrell): We asked DIAC for comment on their contract with Serco and how it serves the…
Never expect Serco to treat staff well (it’s in the contract)
What a surprise: Security guards working at the Pontville detention centre [in Tasmania] say they have been sacked in a shock move by operator Serco. Devastated security staff contacted the Mercury yesterday, saying they had been told their services were no longer required because Serco would rely on security cameras for external surveillance. Therese Mitchell…
Privatisation running rampant in “liberal” American cities
When there is largely bi-partisan support for the false God of privatisation (to increase “efficiency”) we shouldn’t be surprised, as Salon reports, that America is being transformed with little public discussion: If you’ve listened to a political pundit predict any election in the last 50 years, you’ve been told that there are Republican small towns…
Desperate Greece still needed to produce deadly weapons
Sigh (via The Independent): As Greece is forced by European leaders to abandon a referendum to allow the people the chance to vote on its latest bailout conditions, the country is preparing for yet another dose of austerity. The conditions of the next €130bn rescue package will be severe, yet there is an elephant in…
What released Serco contract says about Australian government’s lack of standards
Following… our world exclusive revelations yesterday about the Serco contract with the Australian government (stories here,… here and here), last night ABC Radio’s PM featured an interview with the editor of the independent publication that ran the articles, New Matilda: MARK COLVIN: The news website New Matilda has obtained the contracts under which the private company SERCO…
Exclusive: Serco hires untrained guards in Australia
The following exclusive, written with Paul Farrell, appears today in Australian magazine New Matilda: The Gillard Government’s contract with Serco imposes no initial training requirements for security guards, according to documents obtained under FOI – and that’s causing damage to asylum seekers and to the guards themselves Serco security guards in immigration detention centres are…
Exclusive: no audit requirement for Serco in Australia
The following exclusive, written with Paul Farrell, appears today in Australian magazine New Matilda: Running detention centres is an important job. Why are the audit and reporting requirements for Serco so low? Paul Farrell and Antony Loewenstein report Under the contract signed between Serco and the Department of Immigration (DIAC), which New Matilda has obtained…