An interesting idea and one to consider as an alternative to the rampant privatisation agenda pushed by both major sides of politics in the Western world: Help the unemployed! Cut spending! Provide a safety net! No new taxes! America expects the impossible of government right now, if campaign events are any indication. But what if…
Showing all posts tagged privatisation
Outsourcing detention centres open to mental and physical abuse
The following article is in this week’s Green Left Weekly newspaper: During recent protests in Villawood Detention Centre that followed the September 20 suicide of detained Fijian exile Josefa Rauluni, detainees who tried to help rooftop protesters with water and blankets were stopped by security. One man was bashed. Hunger strikers were kept quiet in…
Blackwater powers on (and leaves dead bodies way behind)
Who says a company causing death and destruction should be a barrier to securing US deals? Never mind the dead civilians. Forget about the stolen guns. Get over the murder arrests, the fraud allegations, and the accusations of guards pumping themselves up with steroids and cocaine. Through a “joint venture,” the notorious private-security firm Blackwater…
Disaster capitalism envelops us all
My following article appears in the Sydney Morning Herald today: Last year’s cessation of hostilities between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, after up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were murdered in the last months of the conflict, has heralded a Beijing-led invasion of the island. The authoritarian Rajapaksa regime was assisted by Chinese…
Which companies would benefit from a nuclear waste dump?
The idea of establishing nuclear waste dumps should be dismissed immediately and yet both major sides of Australian politics rather like the idea. Start opposing: The Australian Greens have called on the minority Labor Government to use the current political environment to forge a new consensus approach to the management of radioactive nuclear waste in…
Iceland looks to actually find transparency in its politicians
Such a move is virtually impossible to imagine in most Western nations where those who caused the financial crisis are now advising governments how to manage the crisis: Iceland’s former Prime Minister Geir Haarde has been referred to a special court in a move that could make him the first world leader to be charged…
Opposition to Serco isn’t solely by refugees
An ongoing theme at this site is the privatisation of detention centres in Australia. Eminent Australians are increasingly vocal against the practice but it’s so much easier for neo-liberal governments to pay a foreign company to do their dirty work, isn’t it? Privatisation of detention centres and particularly the health services associated with the current…
Private armies are out and looking for business
Private mercenaries have never have it so good. Business is booming as governments increasingly rely on them to do the dirty work they no longer want to do: Insurers have drawn up plans for the world’s first private navy to try to turn the tide against Somali pirates who continue to plague the global shipping…
Privatisation for breakfast, lunch and dinner
Are there limits to privatisation or should we just consider asking multinationals to sell babies to the highest bidder? A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system. Now the company, Library Systems & Services, has been hired…
The real cost of outsourcing asylum seeker care is more pain
How unsurprising. Shocking cases of mistreatment in Britain’s detention system, most of which are run by private companies, such as Serco. But let’s not have a robust debate about whether multinationals should be managing people coming from torture and trauma: Millions of pounds in compensation is being paid to migrants who have been traumatised after…