The Refugee Action Collective just released this press statement that highlights the seeming inability or unwillingness of Serco and the Immigration Department to handle the influx of asylum seekers: At least one Tamil detainee has been seriously injured on Christmas Island as overcrowding in the tension centre has seen a series of fights erupt over…
Showing all posts tagged privatisation
Throwing weapons into the bottom of the ocean
When privatised mercenaries become the norm, illegality will almost certainly follow: Thousands of guns are being dumped in the ocean by private security companies hired to protect ships against pirate attacks, top security executives say. As Somali pirates grow bolder and launch attacks further into the Indian Ocean, shipping companies and yacht owners are increasingly…
America isn’t leaving Iraq for years to come
Don’t believe the political and media hype that Washington is on its way out. Quite the opposite, explains private military contractor writer David Isenberg: You thought private security and military contractors were downsizing in Iraq? Think again. On February 1 the… Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report “Iraq: The Transition from a Military Mission…
Fighting the privatisation beast
The Greens are the only major Australian political party to reject the spurious “progress” of privatisation. It’s a disease so widely accepted by the corporate press and mainstream politicians that even suggesting it’ll lead to worse services for the public is almost never uttered. Well, it should be and loudly: The NSW Greens have vowed…
Serco misbehaving and avoiding responsibility (as usual)
When a British multinational is being paid hundreds of millions by the Australian government to imprison asylum seekers, some kind of responsibility should be expected. Alas, these two examples below show that the company is either outsourcing key tasks to a volunteer company or involved in abuses in remote detention centres. One: When it was…
Rape of the third world continues apace in PNG
The toxic mix of Western multinationals, private security and a thoroughly poor nation: Private security personnel employed at a gold mine in Papua New Guinea have been implicated in alleged gang rapes and other violent abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Porgera mine has produced billions of dollars of gold…
Serco at centre of British youth death
What privatisation gets you: An inquest jury has blamed unlawful restraint methods for contributing to the youngest death in custody in Britain for more than a century and concluded there had been a serious system failure at the detention centre. A rehearing ordered by the appeal court found today that the manhandling of 14-year-old Adam…
Blackwater helping us save the world
Look at what our world has created; mercenaries with government backing: Erik Prince, the founder of the international security giant Blackwater Worldwide, is backing an effort by a controversial South African mercenary firm to insert itself into Somalia’s bloody civil war by protecting government leaders, training Somali troops, and battling pirates and Islamic militants there,…
Serco doesn’t really work for the people
Wonderful editorial in the Northern Territory News: The Federal Government’s attempt to gag journalists reporting on asylum seekers in the Territory is contemptible – and laughable. Contemptible because it is undemocratic; laughable because it won’t work. Canberra has told the NT News it broke the law by speaking to an asylum seeker. It also said…
Say after me; Serco isn’t that hard to spell
The issue of Australia’s immigration detention centres is routinely misreported/ignored by corporate media. British multinational Serco runs all the country’s centres – not that you’d know that by reading most media reporting – and here’s just a few latest examples of where this information routinely lies (ie. a black hole): One: Hundreds of asylum seekers…