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):…
Showing all posts tagged Serco
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…
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…
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…
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…
How did Serco end up convincing Australian government of its brilliance?
Peter Chambers gives a convincing argument: By all accounts, Serco probably was the least worst choice; what we are dealing with here is the political equivalent of Steven Bradbury’s win in the 2002 Winter Olympics. It’s not so much that Serco won the contract, it’s that there were no other viable contenders. This connects to…
Governments embrace Serco then wonder why they fail
Another day and yet another example of the British multinational unable to manage the job (and good on the Australian’s Paige Taylor for reporting on this running sore): There are now tensions among guards as well as detainees on Christmas Island. Up to 100 untrained casual detention workers at the centre claim they are doing…
Serco and Australian government see no evil, hear no evil
The ever-increasing growth of Serco in Australia is occurring while the company faces intense scrutiny over its record managing refugees in immigration. This story on ABC TV Lateline highlights the problems. I’m having a growing number of former and current Serco staff approaching me and wanting to speak about what they’re seeing in Australia’s dysfunctional…
Serco expands its reach into West Australian justice
Here’s how corporate government works in the modern age. Multinationals, such as Serco, talk about “efficiency” and “saving money” and are given more contracts even though their own record of appropriate delivery and transparency are far from optimal (and that’s being uber kind). So this news is hardly surprising. Welcome to your privatised world: The…
Serco takes business to yet another nation who should know better
British multinational Serco has now officially opened for business in New Zealand (a reader just informed me that Serco was already in the country in the 1990s). With Serco’s behaviour in Australia under intense scrutiny – is the company being continually rewarded for failure? – this official PR statement from the country’s Department of Corrections…