Showing all posts tagged privatisation
Serco must face the music and accountability forced upon it
The role of British multinational Serco in Australia is a murky affair. How much money is the federal government giving them? Can the media and general public get reliable answers from them? Hardly. Yesterday’s Australian editorial touched on this (but of course didn’t acknowledge that inserting the profit motive into detention centres distorts the system):…
Iraq war isn’t ending; it’s being rebranded as a privatised conflict
NPR reports: A U.S. Army helicopter brigade is set to pull out of Baghdad in December, as part of an agreement with the Iraqi government to remove U.S. forces. So the armed helicopters flying over the Iraqi capital next year will have pilots and machine gunners from DynCorp International, a company based in Virginia. On…
More minds switching onto the Serco curse
All power to this campaign: The public’s health will be at risk if the preferred cleaning company for the new Fiona Stanley Hospital gets the $3.2 billion job, the union representing hospital workers claims. United Voice president Dave Kelly claims services company Serco run “dirty and dangerous” hospitals which could endanger people’s health. Serco say…
Private prisons only help the private companies
The reality, according to this piece in the New York Times, is that privatising prisons doesn’t save money or bring more accountability or make people’s lives any better. Politicians and commentators who say otherwise are obsessed with “market” solutions. Besides, who feels comfortable making money from the misery of others? The conviction that private prisons…
Serco wants to hide its behaviour from us all
This move has all the hallmarks of attempting to keep real people out of the media spotlight. Humanising refugees is the last thing this government and Serco wants: The company running the country’s immigration detention centres has upgraded how seriously it takes the unauthorised presence of media, putting it on par with a bomb threat…
Permanent occupation of Muslim countries great for Western capitalism
Any serious draw-down of US troops from Afghanistan will affect the massive industry that’s expanded post 9/11; private military contractors. Joshua Frost on PBS contemplates the future and the likely push by major interests to maintain the occupation in the war-ravaged land; business will be negatively affected if things change too radically: Very few who…
Serco simply isn’t qualified to deal with traumatised asylum seekers
These stories are tragic and reflect the almost inevitable result of privatising detention centres; costs and corners are cut. ABC reports today: Detainees at Sydney’s Villawood detention centre say an inadequate response from guards forced them to use a cigarette lighter to try to save the life of a man who had attempted suicide. Detainees…
Blackwater launches privatised mercenary army for global hire
Welcome to the future of warfare; privatised, deadly, unaccountable, brutish, secretive and increasingly attractive to so-called democracies and autocracies looking for a stealth force to repress or kill. A stunning New York Times investigation yesterday: Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked…
Serco making a killing from indefinite detention
Who says that Australia’s immigration detention chaos isn’t a perfect opportunity for a privatised firm to make a fortune? The Daily Telegraph reports yesterday: An asylum seeker boom will generate an astonishing $1 billion-plus taxpayer-funded bonanza for the controversial foreign conglomerate that runs Australia’s detention centres. Serco originally signed a five-year contract worth $370 million…