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…
Category General
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…
Exclusive: Australian government contract with Serco revealed
The following global exclusive, written with Paul Farrell and Marni Cordell, appears today in Australian magazine New Matilda: Today NM publishes the contract signed between the Department of Immigration and Serco, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act New Matilda has gained exclusive access to the first publicly available version of the 2009 Department of…
The complicated Wikileaks web (and why they must survive)
In typically idiosyncratic style, David Carr writes in the New York Times – hardly a paper with much respect for Wikileaks for most of this year – outlines the myriad of issues faced by Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Regardless, we must defend transparency in government and challenge the inherent secrecy of “democracies”: Let’s concede that…
Yet more evidence that Colombo enjoys torturing Tamils
Britain’s Channel 4 continues its vital and campaigning work documenting the rogue and torturing state of Sri Lanka:
ABCTV News24 on the economy, Afghanistan and Murdoch thuggery
I appeared last night on ABCTV News24’s The Drum (video here). I argued that chequebook journalism is only problematic when the public increasingly distrusts the media and presumes exploitation is taking place. The mainstream media far too often simply accepts the allegedly unbiased reports released by think-tanks and interest groups. More skepticism required and independent…
ABC Radio PM interview on far Right violence and mainstreaming anti-Muslim belief
The following story appeared on ABC Radio’s PM yesterday: MARK COLVIN: Researchers in Europe say the financial crisis and the immigration debate are fuelling support for far right groups. Young men, in particular, are joining them via social media. The same sets of issues are politicising young Australians but commentators here say there isn’t the…