Last week’s ABC TV 4 Corners, on the mental trauma suffered by refugees inside Australia’s immigration detention centre network, was a devastating portrait of dysfunction. We are literally breeding individuals who are going mad, if not worse. Locking people up for sometimes years is both unnecessary and unethical. And who is making money from all…
Showing all posts tagged Serco
Another day and more Serco violence in Australia
ABC reports: Three people have been treated in hospital after a riot involving more than 100 people at the Scherger Immigration Detention Centre at Weipa on the Cape York Peninsula. The violence broke out yesterday afternoon, causing property damage at the facility. The Immigration Department says two detainees and an officer were injured and taken…
Rewarding failure in the privatised asylum seeker world
The death last year of Jimmy Mubenga by private contractor G4S, as he was being forcibly removed from Britain, revealed the largely hidden and unaccountable world of outsourced horror in a supposed democracy. One year on, justice remains elusive. This letter appeared in the Guardian a few days ago: Jimmy Mubenga died one year ago…
The information black hole that is Christmas Island
The details of the Australian immigration system are often kept secret, not least the activities of British multinational Serco running the detention facilities. The Australian’s Paige Taylor is that rare mainstream journalist who has been pursuing the story for years. Her feature in yesterday’s paper documented the absurd restrictions on finding out accurate information on…
Don’t trust Serco and friends to manage asylum seekers in Australia
Under-trained. Under-staffed. Traumatised. And that’s just the employees of disaster capitalist companies, loved by governments, to add “efficiency” to a straining refugee system. Paige Taylor reports in today’s Australian: An English backpacker on a tourist visa, Australians straight from high school and overseas students are among hundreds of casual workers earning up to $450 a…
Two, vastly different ways to report on asylum seekers
Today’s Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph in Sydney leads with this “exclusive”, deliberately designed to make readers angry towards these supposedly greedy refugees: Buying cigarettes and tobacco for immigration detainees is costing taxpayers more than $1.4 million a year. While the federal government spends millions on anti-smoking campaigns, the cost of keeping up detainees’ habits costs about…
Australia is world leader in terrorising refugees with Serco
This feature in the New York Times yesterday is devastating; a thorough examination of the realities in Australia, America and Britain of using unaccountably thuggish firms, such as Serco, to imprison asylum seekers while governments get “tough” for a public allegedly baying for blood and secure borders. It’s all a sham, of course, with no…
Another day and yet more misery caused by Serco
This week two media reports that highlight the mental anguish caused by the Australian government contracting Serco to “manage” its refugee crisis. This story on Radio National Breakfast deals with the remote centre in Leonora, with woefully under-trained or untrained Serco staff having to deal with traumatised asylum seekers. On ABC AM, Australia’s Human Rights…
Talking about the role of Serco negatively affecting public freedom
It’s a discussion that rarely occurs in Western countries where Serco (and other corporations) are increasingly intruding on our lives. As citizens we are meant to silently accept the influence of these unaccountable firms. Privatisation will set us free, apparently. Resistance is most certainly not futile. Take this recent piece by Zoe Williams in the…
Serco doesn’t train staff properly yet calls itself fit and proper
Here’s why: The Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network released the statement below on September 13. * * * A detention centre worker has contacted the Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network (DASSAN) and indicated that a SERCO security guard was in tears as a result of a directive from the Department of…