This is the state of human rights against faceless asylum seekers in Australia. Justified frustration, after months and years of waiting for decisions, is met with violence. And under-staffed Serco are the battering rams of the failed policy? From yesterday’s ABC’s The World Today: BRENDAN TREMBATH: Refugee advocates and the Greens say they’re horrified that…
Showing all posts tagged Serco
What I’m hearing about Christmas Island chaos
This last weekend saw a large break-out at Australia’s Christmas Island detention facilities. The federal government acknowledges tear gas was used to quell the protests. Thousands of asylum seekers languish for months and often longer with no indication when their cases may be resolved. It’s a prison camp designed to punish those seeking asylum. My…
Warning, NSW: companies like Serco aren’t your real friends
My following story appears in today’s edition of Crikey: The New South Wales election is weeks away and privatisation is a key issue of concern for voters. Liberal opposition leader Barry O’Farrell, the likely next premier, leads a team that openly talks about restructuring the ways in which public assets could be sold. It’s possible…
Neo-liberalism only helps the corporations, nobody else
As Britain’s conservative government embarks on a massive program of privatisation, Britain’s Channel 4 Dispatches discovers that many major multinationals, including Serco and G4S, are doing very nicely, thank you, out of the public cuts: Channel 4’s Ben Laurance writes in the Daily Mail: It has been a week in which public sector workers have…
Serco will keep failing because the system is broken in Australia
As more asylum seekers are crying for help on Australia’s Christmas Island – locked up for months on a remote island – all the federal government talks about is fining Serco: The federal government will take action against detention centre service provider Serco if it has breached any part of its contract following two breakouts…
Serco puts out the begging bowl
What is a poor, little multinational like Serco to do when Britain has less money to give? Look outward: Serco, the FTSE 100 support services group that runs the Docklands Light Railway, is to target growth in international markets as the UK economy comes under pressure from public spending cuts. Christopher Hyman, chief executive, said…
Our detention centres can’t and won’t handle refugees
This sounds like my kind of incompetent government. Canberra will be expanding detention centres across Australia and British firm Serco will be getting more money in the process. And yet there may be some practical problems: NT Police Association president Vince Kelly told AAP he understood that Serco, the private security company that manages Australia’s…
Perhaps Serco should just privatise our dreams
The role of Serco in Western Australia (largely ignored in the east of the country) is likely to increase. Problems with the company? Open to abuse? Who cares, if there’s a buck to be made? Here’s the West Australian: A prisoner rights group says the State Government’s plan to privatise parole services would make the…
Serco pays a small fine in Australia but contract with Canberra only deepens
My source tells me that Serco is paying this fine – how nice of the Australian government to try and teach Serco a lesson this way rather than actually improving human rights for the asylum seekers in prison – for 2010 failures towards refugees as well as escapes: The immigration department has fined the company…
Making sure Serco doesn’t soon run every aspect of Australian life
I’m still in Perth, Western Australia and I spent some time this afternoon with activists and union leaders discussing the state government’s move towards further privatisation of public services. This is an Australian-wide problem and a global issue. Campaigns are growing here against the imposition of Serco in many areas of life. A piece in…