Tag Archive for 'Serco'

Serco damages worker’s lives but government wants more privatised staff

Published on 11 July 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Two stories today that highlight the pernicious effect of British multinational Serco in Australia.

One from today’s Australian (to its credit, the only serious newspaper tackling this question regularly):

The company running Australia’s immigration detention centres has acknowledged the work is traumatic for staff following the death of a young guard troubled by the hanging of a teenage asylum-seeker.

Kieran Webb died while holidaying with his family last Wednesday after working for six months as a security officer at the Curtin immigration detention centre in Western Australia’s far north, according to a memo to all staff from government contractor Serco last Friday.

There were no suspicious circumstances, Serco Immigration Services managing director Chris Manning wrote in the memo.

“If you feel the need for emotional support arising from the work you do, please consider speaking to someone,” he said.

“It is important we acknowledge that our line of work can at times place us in difficult and traumatic situations as we manage vulnerable people in our care.”
Five detainees have killed themselves in immigration detention centres since last September. Self-harm and threats of self-harm occur daily, and a psychologist is employed full-time by Serco to help guards deal with the fallout of acts such as lip-sewing, slashing and attempted hangings.

The Australian has been told detainees are taking increasingly dramatic steps to draw attention to their grievances. On Christmas Island last Thursday, a detainee sewed his lips together and had a friend tie him to the compound fence in a crucifix position.

On March 28, Mr Webb was among guards who cut down a 19-year-old Afghan detainee who hanged himself in his room.

Mr Webb was deeply affected by the death and by the unrest that followed, according to guards who worked alongside him at the time.

Two from United Voice, a union that represents workers:

A month after Villawood Detention Centre was burned to the ground, Serco was pushing to reduce staffing on key shifts.

The company wants to cut numbers on some shifts by as much as 50 percent.

United Voice members say the move would wreck their family lives, and reduce their ability to build relationships with detainees that could head off future trouble.

More than 120 Villawood members responded to a Union survey, panning proposed changes as family unfriendly, impractical and a health and safety risk.

Officers, predominantly working 12-hour shifts, currently get seven days off every 21 days. Under the revamp, they would have to wait 35 or 42 days for their long breaks.

United Voice assistant secretary, Peter Campise, says extending the qualifying period would be a blow to morale.

“Anything that hurts morale at the centre is a problem for our members and the whole immigration detention regime,” he said.

“United Voice rejects any changes that expose our members to increased risk.”

Meanwhile, Villawood officers are buoyed by Serco’s retreat from attempts to slash overtime rates for people required to work more than 14 hours.

Serco reduced double time payments to time and a half early in the New Year but agreed to “revert to the previous interpretation of the clause” after it became apparent member would pursue the issue..

Peter says securing back pay is now the issue.

Serco begins PR push to win even more privatised business

Published on 4 July 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Not that most governments seemingly need more convincing to make services more “efficient” (which is code for a lack of accountability):

Serco, the multinational company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year running outsourced government services, will today launch an advertising campaign aimed at boosting its public image in WA as it prepares to take on lucrative new local contracts.

The company has received negative publicity from its role managing Australia’s immigration detention centres and has been targeted by the WA branch of United Voice, formerly the Miscellaneous Workers Union, which is campaigning against privatisation of backroom services at Fiona Stanley Hospital, due to open in 2014.

Serco is the Barnett Government’s preferred tenderer for the huge Fiona Stanley contract and last month it won the $210 million prisoner transport and custodial services security job from rival contracting group G4S.

The company is understood to be setting up a Perth office and the advertising campaign is being rolled out in part to lay the groundwork for a big recruiting drive to fill hundreds of jobs at Fiona Stanley.

The campaign tries to humanise Serco by focusing on employees who deliver frontline services with the tagline: “Living, thinking and acting locally.”

It features a YouTube video with a Serco employee, Catherine, who tells how she helped a female Transperth customer who telephoned the Serco-run call centre after she missed a late-night bus.

Serco Australia chief executive David Campbell said the campaign was “an opportunity for the WA community to get to know the real Serco”.

“We have a proud 16-year history of successfully delivering essential services to West Australians,” he said. “We are already providing services in transport, justice, defence and immigration in WA and soon hope to sign a contract with the Government for the provision of non-clinical services at Fiona Stanley Hospital.”

Serco was last month praised by the inspector of custodial services for its management of WA’s only private prison Acacia. The firm also runs the Indian Pacific train.

However, it has attracted a lot of criticism over its management of detention centres after riots at Christmas Island and Villawood.

It also ran a British detention juvenile centre that was the scene of the suicide death of a 14-year-old inmate and was recently cited for breaches of cleanliness at a Scottish hospital.

Is there any space where Serco won’t go?

Published on 28 June 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Clearly not (and the Australian government is so desperate to “manage” asylum seekers, any multinational will do):

Australia’s newest immigration detention centre could open near Brisbane within months as the Federal Government negotiates to take over the Borallon jail.

The Courier-Mail understands the Federal Government plans to convert the high-security jail, 50km west of Brisbane, into immigration accommodation by the year’s end.

The state-owned, 492-bed facility on the outskirts of Ipswich has been managed and operated since January 2008 by Serco Australia, which also runs the Scherger Immigration Detention Centre near Weipa.

Serco’s five-year contract to operate Borallon is set to be transferred to the new 300-bed women’s prison at Gatton, due to be completed this year.

Borallon’s 476 inmates are expected to be moved to Woodford Correctional Centre, which has about the same number of spare beds.

Serco using imported labour to oppress refugees in Australia

Published on 1 June 2011 in General. 4 Comments Tags: , , , .

This is what privatisation does; forces corporations to manage situations without accountability or care to the human beings in the situation:

Dozens of foreign workers have been shipped to Australia to work at immigration detention centres.

Serco has imported 58 staff members, most from England, to staff detention centres it charges hundreds of millions of dollars to run for the Government.

They are employed on generous contracts after short training courses.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen defended the use of imported labour.

“The detention services provider is subject to the same conditions regarding employing foreign workers as any other company operating in Australia,” a spokeswoman for Mr Bowen said.

“Detention centres across Australia employ numerous local workers where possible. For example, Pontville detention centre in Tasmania will employ 100 locals, 50 of whom are currently undergoing training.”

He said the workers, who are mostly in consultancy and management roles, were employed on work visas and paid the same rate as Serco’s Australian workers.

A Serco spokesman said the workers typically stayed in Australia for about six months.

“To ensure best practice is shared across the globe and to deliver value for our customers, we will from time to time second employees to other parts of the business,” he said.

“This means that staff from Serco Australia travel to work overseas, just as staff come here from abroad.

“Serco ensures all its overseas workers come to Australia on the appropriate work visa.”

Experts say the Government will pay Serco close to $1 billion to run Australia’s detention centres.

How Serco thrives by failing constantly

Published on 29 May 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Australia’s immigration detention system is in chaos and yet the company running them, Serco, is about to be rewarded. Again. The perverse logic of privatisation:

The federal government is believed to have signed a contract to outsource the management of defence base operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan to the foreign company running Australia’s immigration detention centres.

Sources claim there was concern within the Australian Defence Force about a private foreign company taking over behind-the-wire operations to support troops in Afghanistan. The ADF said it would announce the successful contractor shortly but would not confirm if that company was Serco.

Serco, which is run by David Campbell, would neither confirm nor deny it had been given the contract.

It is believed the multi-million-dollar contract will be to manage all base operations including catering, cleaning, asset hire and mess facilities at the Al Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates.

Foreign private contractors would also replace uniformed personnel in the provision of maintenance, accommodation and mess services for the first time in Kandahar and Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan.

Even some in the Murdoch press (in this case, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph) are worried about the madness of an uncontrolled capitalist system (well, for a few minutes, anyway):

The man in charge of Australia’s detention centres lives in this Sydney Harbour waterfront apartment – a world away from detainees living in overcrowded conditions just 30km away at the Villawood detention centre.

David Campbell, the boss of Serco, lives in the $2.5 million three-bedroom apartment at McMahons Point.

With estimates the highly-secretive Serco will make $1 billion from running detention centres until 2014, it is expected, with bonuses, that Mr Campbell’s salary will only rise.

It’s official; Australian government happy for Serco to do what it pleases

Published on 26 May 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

The glories of unaccountable privatisation in action (via New Matilda):

Not only is the $1 billion contract awarded to detention centre operator Serco beyond the reach of public scrutiny, but Senate Estimates hearings today revealed that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship collects scant data on breaches and has limited knowledge and oversight of staff training levels.

In what was a stellar confirmation of the Greens’ reputation as Senate watchdogs, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young doggedly pressed DIAC assistant secretary Fiona Lynch-Magor over allegations that Serco has been posting untrained and inexperienced guards to Australia’s overcrowded detention centres, with surprising results.

When asked by Hanson-Young, the DIAC official was unable to list the number of times Serco had breached the “management and service” provision of the contract, relating to detention centre operations, because the contract “doesn’t record specific breaches per incident”, instead measuring Serco’s performance under a “series of abatements that apply to certain metrics”.

The abatements, issued as retrospective fines, have been occurring on Lynch-Magor’s admission “since the beginning of the contract”, but are “not recorded in a recordable number”. “Systemic” breaches trigger “continuous failure” under the contract, which has a multiplier effect on the abatement issued.

Senator Hanson-Young appeared increasingly frustrated with Lynch-Magor’s answers, which became more circuitous as the questioning continued. When asked whether a failure to train staff properly could be considered a breach, she replied that Serco was “required to undertake all the training we require them to do”, and listed Certificate 2 requirements for centre chefs and guards.

Lynch-Magor told the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs that DIAC had requested Serco prove their staff were properly trained “earlier this week”, and had received an immediate response. When Senator Hanson-Young asked the number of staff who “were asked to leave”, she was told that wasn’t information the department usually requested from Serco.

“So the department doesn’t know how many untrained staff have been on the ground… as of earlier this week?” the Senator replied.

And more evidence this week of a culture in the Immigration Department which rather likes a system whereby private companies can allegedly take responsibility for vulnerable people and yet still stuff it up:

BARBARA MILLER: The report commissioned by the Department of Immigration found refugees were paying through the roof for accommodation that was in some cases wholly inadequate. The accommodation provider, Resolve FM, a subcontractor of Navitas, has been put on notice.

The findings came as no surprise to Sister Diana Santleben. She was one of a number of community members who raised allegations that refugees were being exploited and mistreated. Sister Diana says she constantly hears of and witnesses such cases.

DIANA SANTLEBEN: Daily, daily. I mean I have taken hundreds of tonnes of Navitas issue furniture to a rubbish tip and sourced from the people of Newcastle thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth in replacement furniture, all at our own expense.

You know I’m a pensioner, and we’ve done it voluntarily. Basically we’ve done Navitas’s job for them voluntarily for the past five years so that the refugees did not endure having no beds, for example, because the beds they were given only lasted a week or two.

BARBARA MILLER: Do you think this report goes far enough?

DIANA SANTLEBEN: No, no, no. The report basically is into Resolve FM and Resolve FM were a sub-contractor for Navitas. The report did not under its guidelines study the work of Navitas really.

BARBARA MILLER: So what do you think should happen?

DIANA SANTLEBEN: Well my personal opinion, if I had my way I would just dismiss Navitas.

Serco must face the music and accountability forced upon it

Published on 24 May 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

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):

Some criticism has focused on Serco, the private operators of detention facilities, but whether they are run by the public or private sector, the government is responsible for ensuring the centres deliver the appropriate security, care and safety for detainees, workers and visitors.

The feature story in this week’s Green Left Weekly details these issues in a far deeper way:

Before visiting the Curtin detention centre in far-north Western Australia in early April as part of a solidarity convoy, Victoria Martin-Iverson told Green Left Weekly she knew the conditions would be grim.

“This is a humanitarian and psychiatric crisis,” she said. “We charge a private company with the responsibility of delivering services to people in detention, but they cut costs every way and anyway they can.

“It makes a profit off the misery of asylum seekers, off the illegal imprisonment of people who have not committed or been charged with a crime.”

…

When a private corporation is concentrating on profit, it will always cut costs and staffing, and will suppress vital information to avoid fines and maintain its contract. It is fundamentally wrong to outsource the detention of vulnerable people who seek and need protection.

If the government refuses to investigate, it is harder for the public to know what is taking place and how to fight it.

But refugees know, and they are trying very hard to tell the public.

More minds switching onto the Serco curse

Published on 23 May 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

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 hospitals the company looks after are clean and healthy and rejected claims their services weren’t up to scratch.  It labelled the union’s allegations as “mischievous”.

The union today released a report showing Serco failed to meet standads in six out of eight wards at a UK hospital last year.

“Here is an independent government assessment of Serco’s cleaning standards in UK hospitals and they’ve come up wanting,” Mr Kelly said.

“If those cleaning standards are repeated at Fiona Stanley, patients here in Western Australia will certainly see an increase in the number of superbug infections.”

But Serco spokesperson said the report referred to dust that was discovered in a hard-to-reach area.

“The comments related to some dust, fluff and grit in hard to reach areas such as behind a sluice machine,” the spokesperson said.

Of course, Serco is now facing an increasing barrage of criticism over its various work practices (and pro-privatisation governments are equally under scrutiny for falling in love with the multinational).

But such companies can always find some sympathetic journalists to spin issues their way. Enter Michael Stutchbury in Murdoch’s Australian with a nice puff story for the poor, struggling Serco:

The political Left and the public sector unions typically resist ending government monopolies. But the “progressive” approach of privately run jails may startle tough-on-crime conservatives.

The head of Serco’s London-based think-tank arm, Gary Sturgess, suggests that private prisons have been the “great success story” of contracting out. That’s partly because government jails have been so bad.

“In the English-speaking world, the public sector has not done a terrifically good job at managing prisons,” says Sturgess, who was cabinet secretary for the NSW Liberal Greiner government two decades ago. “They are not areas of best practice in public service delivery.”

But it’s also because the contained prison environment can be tightly managed by private contractors and closely monitored by governments and inspectors. The risks and costs of prisoners reoffending traditionally are borne by government. The issue is whether private providers can use financial incentives to take on some of this risk and cut through the contested social and criminological theories about what works best to reduce recidivism.

Serco wants to hide its behaviour from us all

Published on 19 May 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

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 or an escape.

The Serco document says “unauthorised” media presence at a detention centre is now considered “critical” – the highest possible threat level.

There has been an intense focus on the detention system over recent months after a number of protests and riots.

The Government says it is a serious issue if the media tries to gain unauthorised entry to a detention centre.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says it is important that people’s asylum claims are not compromised and they not be filmed.

He says the heightened alert is a matter for Serco.

“There is a media protocol in detention centres, and on those very rare occasions that media do not say they are media or attempt to gain unauthorised entry, that is a serious matter,” Mr Bowen said.

The Immigration Department says new classifications for incidents within detention centres only relate to how they are reported to the Government.

A department spokesman says the document only deals with the timeframe for reporting issues to the Government and has no bearing on how they are dealt with.

Serco simply isn’t qualified to deal with traumatised asylum seekers

Published on 18 May 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

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 say they tried to burn through the rope 41-year-old Ahmed Al Akabi had used to take his own life.

They say they have borne witness to a string of suicides at the centre in the past year, including that of Iraqi-born teacher Mr Akabi.

The detainees, mostly of Kurdish origin, relayed numerous concerns over their indefinite detention, with several afflicted by illnesses related to stress and depression.

Tensions at the centre came to a head last month when riot police were called in during a night of rioting that saw several buildings destroyed by fire.

One of the men who found Mr Akabi says guards employed by Villawood’s privately owned operator, Serco, were ill-equipped and not adequately trained to respond appropriately to the suicide attempt.

The man says the guards did not have a sharp instrument available to cut Mr Akabi down and did not know how to respond.

The detainee, who did not want to be identified, says he and others tried to hold Mr Akabi aloft in a bid to save him from suffocation until help arrived.

He says they were forced to use the cigarette lighter to try to save the father of three, but were too late; he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Serco declined to comment on specific allegations, but in a statement to the ABC said it runs a comprehensive staff training program that goes beyond its contractual obligations.

“Serco is committed to doing everything we can to prevent those in our care from coming to harm,” the statement said.

“Our staff take this commitment extremely seriously and work hard to keep those in our care safe and secure.”

A spokesman for the Immigration Department told the ABC that no comment could be made about the incident while a coronial inquiry was ongoing.

The coronial inquiry into Mr Akabi’s death is due to be held from June 27 until July 1, but the findings will not be released publicly because it was a suicide.

Mr Akabi is understood to have fled Iraq after death threats from the feared Shiite militia commanded by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Serco making a killing from indefinite detention

Published on 15 May 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

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 to run the centres until mid-2014.

But immigration industry experts said this figure was now likely to blow out many times during the course of the contract – and burst through the billion-dollar barrier.

Figures obtained from government tender records show the total size of Serco’s contracts in relation to asylum seekers was quietly doubled in November to more than $756 million.

Of this revised figure, $712 million is allocated to run the detention centres through to mid-2014 and a further $44.5 million for “residential housing and transport” for detainees in Sydney, Perth and Port Augusta.

But immigration industry sources are saying the latest contract amount for Serco is already six months out of date and it stands to make hundreds of millions more from taxpayers, with continued boat arrivals.

One source said the asylum seeker boom since November had already added $100-$200 million to the total value of Serco’s detention centre contracts since then. This would value them at up to $950 million as of this month.

But the industry experts said Serco’s detention centre bonanza is set to burst through the $1 billion barrier if the Government’s new “Malaysia Solution” does not work and refugee boats keep coming.

How did Serco end up convincing Australian government of its brilliance?

Published on 11 May 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

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 the de facto situation in Canberra surrounding tender processes like this one. In practice, the leading contenders are those corporations large and wealthy enough to afford highly skilled, well-connected lobbyists capable of gaining access to and maintaining good relationships with their key counterparts in the government.

This is effectively Serco’s business model with governments around the world: aggressive lobbying, savvy corporate communications, underbidding, cost-cutting, sub-sub-sub-sub contracting, and a willingness to provide ‘support services’ for all those things governments cannot or will no longer do. Its workers – often inadequately trained and prepared for their tasks, as a recent 7.30 report detailed ­– do the dirty, dangerous, difficult, repetitive, boring, traumatic work of dealing with things and caring for people that we would rather not think about.

Serco’s yellow-vest-wearing grunts are the frontline workers of the latest wave if the privatisation boom.

Governments embrace Serco then wonder why they fail

Published on 10 May 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

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 the same work as qualified security officers but are paid about $800 a week less.

Serco, the company chosen to run Australia’s immigration detention centres, is battling a shortage of workers on the remote island and has grown concerned by recent resignations and dissatisfaction among the lower-paid workforce employed by subcontractor MSS.

Serco has begun recruiting MSS workers in a bid to quell disquiet and prevent further resignations, The Australian has been told. “We’re the ones doing all the work while Serco workers get the good pay,” one MSS worker told The Australian.

“Some Serco officers are sympathetic but some just lord it over you because you haven’t done the Serco course. We’re not even supposed to have contact with the clients (detainees) and we’re running the place.”

Under Australian law, detention centre officers who interact with asylum-seekers in detention must complete a training course that usually takes six weeks.

The paper published a long feature yesterday that detailed what Serco has become and why so many officials find them so appealing. And yet despite the company’s troubling record, it doesn’t seem to stop them receiving more and more contracts. That’s the genius of unquestioned privatisation; transferring the problems of the state to others:

Serco, the company that has attracted headlines by operating Australia’s troubled immigration detention centres, says that unlike some US contracting firms it is not interested in providing armed forces.

It does, however, provide a wide array of defence support services. Serco’s expansion from a small cinema company into today’s multi-tasking giant with a £4.3 billion ($6.6bn) annual turnover began with a 1962 contract to build and support a missile early warning system at a Royal Air Force base.

Its military work now gives it a role on every defence base in Australia and includes training RAF pilots and helping to manage the Atomic Weapons Establishment that provides and maintains Britain’s nuclear warheads.

At the same time it has moved into everything from administration services to education, transport and healthcare. It is one of the largest air traffic control operators in the world and is Britain’s largest employer of scientists.

With the Cameron government determined to outsource more services and Serco’s foreign earnings growing rapidly to 40 per cent of its revenues the company has become a blue-chip darling of London stock analysts, with many of its operations not just recession-proof but benefiting from an era of government cutbacks.

…

n 2005 the Chief Inspector of Prisons reported that Serco’s Doncaster prison was run with an “institutional meanness” that was reflected in “the physical conditions in which many prisoners lived, which in some cases were squalid”. “Many prisoners lacked pillows, adequate mattresses [and] toilet seats,” the inspector said.

One person familiar with the prison at that time tells The Australian part of the problem was that a private company’s duties had to be encapsulated in a contract. “In that case the contract said the company had to maintain proper toilets but it didn’t say anything about toilet seats, and it said there had to be decent bedding but it didn’t mention pillows.”

The next inspection in 2008 found things had improved at Doncaster although some “two-person cells had been turned into three-person cells by placing a bed in the shared toilet [cubicle].”

David Ramsbotham, chief inspector of prisons from 1995 to 2001, believes private firms cut costs in a worrying way.

“The thing that worries me most about the private sector prisons is that frankly because obviously they are trying to make a profit they have got to decide where they can afford to cut corners and the corners they cut are usually to do with staffing and staff numbers,” he says.

Serco and Australian government see no evil, hear no evil

Published on 7 May 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

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 detention centres. Stay tuned:

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The immigration centre on Christmas Island was labelled a factory for mental illness after overcrowding and frustration led to a series of riots and disturbances.

Tonight, we’re bringing you a new perspective from inside the detention centre.

A guard has broken ranks with the Government and Serco, the secretive company that runs the centre, to give Lateline a disturbing account of working life inside the facility.

We’ve agreed to protect his identity because he fears for his job.

His language is colourful, at times even offensive, but his story adds to a sense of urgency that there are serious problems in the way Australia is managing the flow of asylum seekers.

Peter Lloyd reports.

ANONYMOUS GUARD: I thought I was going to go up there and change the world. You go up there – it’s an eye-opener, it’s just an eye-opener.

PETER LLOYD, REPORTER: When trouble breaks out on Christmas Island, security is the first line of defence, but according to at least one guard, when there’s an average of one officer for every hundred detainees, the mayhem is hard to contain.

ANONYMOUS GUARD: First off you go “Shit!” Then you just go and try and help the people who are not involved get out of the way, go to their rooms. And then if it’s out of control you just leave the scene to let them go.

PETER LLOYD: Every man for himself?

ANONYMOUS GUARD: Yeah, but you help your mates out first if anyone’s hurt or in trouble, you go and grab them, protect them, just drag everyone out and just let them go. We’re paying for it all and these monkeys are going, ripping everything apart. It’s just a wanted waste.

PETER LLOYD: He is a self-confessed angry man, angry at some asylum seekers and Serco, the company that runs the Christmas Island detention centre on behalf of the Federal Government.

ANONYMOUS GUARD: You’re shadowed for week and in you go. This is you, this is what you got to do, go for it. And you’re learning as you go. It’ll make you a stronger person or it’d turn you into a puddle.

PETER LLOYD: What sort of preparation and training did you get for this job?

ANONYMOUS GUARD: To put it bluntly: jack shit.

PETER LLOYD: He says he was hired to guard the fence line, but instead found himself working directly with asylum seekers and their desperate acts of self-harm.

ANONYMOUS GUARD: Slashings, hangings – or one hanging.

PETER LLOYD: What’s that like to witness?

ANONYMOUS GUARD: Messy. Blood getting – squirting everywhere. It’s not a nice feeling.

PETER LLOYD: What do you do?

ANONYMOUS GUARD: Just calm them down, wrap them up, shoof them off for medical, then clean up the mess.

PETER LLOYD: What happens to the paperwork when there is trouble?

ANONYMOUS GUARD: Your hands are tied. You might get unruly detainee, and Immigration will say, “Oh, no, you can’t do him, you can’t touch him.” Even if he pushes you or shoves you, you just look at him. If you write him up, sometimes he goes into Bin 13. And that’s it.

PETER LLOYD: On Christmas Island, “Bin 13″ is code for the document shredder. Among guards it’s popularly believed that Serco keeps the truth about what happens from the Government.

Serco expands its reach into West Australian justice

Published on 5 May 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

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 [Western] State Government has announced prominent government-services company Serco has been awarded preferred tender status to run WA’s prisoner transport, court security and custodial services operations.

Serco has been in the public eye in recent months over its handling of the contract to manage Australia’s immigration detention centres in the wake of asylum seeker riots at Christmas Island and Villawood.

Serco is set to win the WA custodial services contract from incumbent G4S, which presided over the tragic death of Aboriginal elder Mr Ward who died in the back of an unair-conditioned prison van in January 2008.

Serco is also in line to win a lucrative contract to provide a raft of services to the new Fiona Stanley hospital – something that is the subject of a union campaign.

Corrective Services Minister Terry Redman said the new contract would run for five years with two options that could see it extended to a maximum of 10 years.

He claimed the new contract would deliver “improved quality of service” with “a focus on duty of care and the delivery of all services in a safe, humane and decent manner”.

The existing $25 million-a-year contract provides that it can be terminated only after two separate deaths in custody in a year, it was revealed in March to a parliamentary committee.

At the time, Department of Corrective Services Commissioner Ian Johnson said the new contract would see that provision changed in the new contract to just one death.

G4S and two prison guards have been charged by WorkSafe under occupational health and safety laws over Mr Ward’s death.

Serco will negotiate a contract with the Department of Corrective Services. Assuming negotiations proceed smoothly, Serco will take over custodial services responsibilities on July 31.

Serco takes business to yet another nation who should know better

Published on 3 May 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

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 is almost comical. Good luck, New Zealand:

In the early hours of Sunday (1 May) morning, the Department of Corrections  successfully handed over the management of what was Auckland Central Remand Prison to Serco New Zealand.

This is a significant step in the transition to contract management of what is now called Mt Eden Corrections Facility.

Transitioning a working prison to new management is a complex process that has to be carefully managed between both parties. This was achieved smoothly, reflecting the successful partnership between the Department and Serco. People from both organisations have worked closely together over the last few months to ensure that this handover could be effected without issue.

“I am looking forward to seeing the relationship between Serco and the Department deliver world class – potentially world leading – custodial services that will have significant flow on benefits for the community. Our contract with Serco demands a high standard of performance and I know that staff now working for Serco will help manage the prison effectively and meet the standards expected.

“I am very proud of the Corrections staff on site who have worked through a challenging time, many of whom have now commenced their new roles with Serco.

“Even though many of our staff will no longer be working for us, under contract management of the prison they will still be an important part of New Zealand’s corrections system and will be contributing to the core goals of ensuring public safety and reducing re-offending.

“We expect Serco to operate the prison differently from the way the Department operates a public prison. Serco’s different approach will provide an opportunity to inject new ideas and new innovations into the corrections sector to enhance public safety, improve rehabilitation and lower costs.

“The objective is to use private sector innovation and international experience to improve quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness across the whole New Zealand corrections system. We are introducing contract management to provide real benefits for the community over the long term, particularly in relation to achieving a reduction in re-offending.

Australia pays Serco and they give us no answers

Published on 2 May 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

As Australia’s immigration detention continues moving out of control – over-crowding, mental trauma, privatised and unaccountable care – the British controller of the centres, Serco, is now just trying to shut down debate:

The company running Australia’s detention centres is cracking down on guards suspected of talking about what goes on behind the wire.

Serco management is on high alert for potential leakers following damaging revelations about staffing levels and work practices in detention centres published in The Australian.

The company has so far been unable to pinpoint or punish any of its employees over those reports. But Serco now believes it has found the source of the sensational allegations aired on Sydney radio station 2GB.

Serco yesterday confirmed it has stood down a female casual employee while it investigates whether she appeared on Ray Hadley’s program making claims including that rioters from Christmas Island subsequently participated in protests at Villawood.

On Friday, Hadley read out more claims, such as assaults and drug abuse were regular and some detainees were allowed to make trips to rehabilitation centres where they obtained illicit substances.

The Immigration Department has described the claims as completely false.

Serco has held a meeting with the woman, who continues to be on the payroll. Her union representative was at the meeting.

A Serco spokeswoman told The Australian yesterday that staff had access to a confidential whistleblower service but “this is not a whistle-blowing matter”.

“All employees have a responsibility to report instances of malpractice or inappropriate behaviour,” the spokeswoman said.

“Employees then have the right to report matters anonymously and be protected from adverse employment action arising from the reporting of concerns in good faith.

“However, all Serco employees who work on the DIAC contract are required to sign a deed of confidentiality.”

Hadley told listeners that his “whistleblower”, who spoke in a New Zealand accent on his program, accompanied rioters from Christmas Island to Villawood on a recent charter flight.

Hadley claimed the woman had been threatened with voice recognition software. Serco said it “strongly denies this”.

Canberra wants to look tough on refugees while privatised care dehumanises all

Published on 26 April 2011 in General. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

It’s a sad sight seeing Immigration Minister Chris Bowen talking about punishing asylum seekers for his own government’s mistakes. Any chance he’d like to examine why so many refugees are suffering prolonged mental trauma under his care? Of course not.

With an ongoing protest around Curtin detention centre in Western Australia, activists on the ground there report on what Serco have been doing and it ain’t pretty:

A few of us had assisted with legal visits and were able to see the conditions of the camp and the dispair of those unjustly detained without charge or trial. Shipping containers are being used to house the latest arrivals with more empty ones being preparred. As if that atrocity was not enough we can confirm an even more repulsive practice is now firmly entrenched : Serco guards referring to people, to humans, to fathers, brothers, sons, by number and not by name.

On Australia’s front-line against privatised detention centres

Published on 26 April 2011 in General. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Good on those brave souls raising the issue of privatised asylum seekers. In a real democracy, we would be able to visit people technically under our care:

Protesters have knocked over a fence at the Curtin Detention Centre near Derby [in Western Australia], with as many as 40 defying police orders to stay away from the site.

The protesters began a hasty retreat after police called in reinforcements and threatened to arrest anyone who remained at the site.

The busload of protesters arrived at the site about 4.30pm and found the gate barricaded with a 2.5m fence. They were also met by a “significant” police force at the gate, 7km down a driveway from the North West Highway.

Chanting “free the refugees”, “Serco and DIAC, blood on your hands” and waving placards, the group stormed the fence, knocking it over.

Refugees Rights Network spokesman Gerry Georgatos spoke to The West Australian during the clash, saying Serco guards appeared flustered by the arrivals and did not move against them.

However, more State Security officers and WA Police turned up within minutes of the group’s arrival. A car load of Department of Immigration and Citizenship officials arrived at the site during the melee but turned around and took off again when they saw the situation escalating.

Other vehicles approached the scene from within the detention centre.

Mr Georgatos earlier told The West Australian the group was undeterred by 17 arrests at the site yesterday.

He claimed detainees had emailed today begging the visitors for help, saying at least 25 people had collapsed from exhaustion or dehydration since the hunger strike began three days ago.

He claimed several had been treated inside the detention centre’s own medical facilities, though this has not been verified by the Department of Immigration.

“There’s 18 computers in there – obviously, they haven’t shut them down and anyone who is getting on the computers is pummelling us out information,” Mr Georgatos said.

“We don’t have the figures exactly but they’re not what DIAC and Serco are claiming … I’ve actually called them liars today.”

He said an attempt to visit the site earlier today was not allowed after Serco was warned the group was on its way.

He said Derby Police and State Security officers had watched the visitors like hawks since they arrived.

“We have been followed … they have been following us around town all day,” he said. “They’re everywhere.”

Asylum seeker anger explodes across Australia (while Serco ignores humanity)

Published on 24 April 2011 in General. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

What do we expect when we treat people like animals to be locked up indefinitely while our too-few-officials manage the problem, often receiving “intelligence” from the very regimes from which people are fleeing?

A number of asylum seekers are continuing a hunger strike into a second day at the Curtin detention centre in Western Australia’s north.

The Immigration Department says about 150 refugees started a peaceful protest yesterday afternoon but it cannot confirm how many are refusing to eat.

Around 60 refugee supporters, including a bus of 50 activists from Perth, have travelled from across Australia to visit the centre.

The Refugee Action Coalition’s Ian Rintoul says the single men have the same concerns as the detainees who rioted at Villawood during the week.

“There are seriously damaged people inside the Curtin Detention Centre, people who have been waiting 15 months even to get a first answer,” he said.

“Plenty of people that we saw in the last few days have been waiting 20 months for their security clearances…there are a lot of very angry and upset people.”

I am receiving reports from activists on the ground near Curtin. The following is written by Gerry Georgatos of the Refugees Rights Action Network:

60 human rights advocates and social justice activists made up of doctors, lawyers, mental health workers, nurses, teachers, social workers, tradespeople, academics, students and others, from various social justice organisations and campaign groups, and others not affiliated to anyone, have arrived this day, Easter Saturday, April 23rd, to Curtin Detention Centre.

We journeyed under the banner of the Refugees Rights Action Network from Perth in a hired bus and with a support vehicle with a trailer of food and camping equipment. The bus was driven by three of the advocates who recently acquired the licence, at their own cost, so as to ensure this journey. We left on Thursday, 7pm from East Perth, with fifty on board the bus and after 24 hours of driving camped at Eightly Mile Beach, arriving near midnight on Easter Friday.
We arrived at Curtin Detention Centre at 3pm on the Saturday. During the last month forty of us had submitted to the Serco managed Curtin Detention Centre therebouts 100 visitor applications. We have been in contact with hundreds of our Asylum Seekers for many months. They are despairing, many are at the brink of mental and physical despair. Their maltreatment in these illegal facilities which incarcerate them have reached a critical mass of rising self harm, depression, acute and chronic trauma, suicide and multiple suicide attempts, and suicide. There have been six Detention Centre deaths (in custody) during the last eight months and undisclosed numerous suicide attempts. Reports to us clearly describe self harm and suicide attempts as a daily occurrence.
Curtin Detention Centre today is on the brink of a pending crisis brought on as per usual by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and Serco management. They are literally driving people into mental illness and literally killing people. Australian of the Year, in 2010, psychiatrist Patrick McGorrie described these Detention Centres as “mental illness factories”. Australia has 23 Detention Centres and is now building another three Detention Centres. The budget for Detention and processing blows out every year, and is now up to 1.5 billion dollars per annum. How better could we spend this?
Our bus travelled down the beginning of the seven kilometre road leading to the Curtin Detention Centre where we were met by a gated blockade. Behind this gate stood Serco guards, federal police and an Australian Defence Force official. We were instructed that visits may not be possible, then we were told that some visits would be scheduled. We were then told that eight visits would be allowed and that we had to wait. We were lectured by the ADF and the AFP that we would be arrested if we proceeded unauthorised through the gates.
As the afternoon wore on it became evident visits would not be enabled and that we were being lied to. We soon learned from an Asylum Seeker who we made contact with by phone that the detainees had been told by Serco management that we were ‘not coming’. They did not believe this and despaired. Some fifty of the advocates civilly approached the fence and we spoke with the Serco frontline employees. Conflicting explanations and depictions were deployed on behalf of Serco management.
I phoned the Centre manager on his mobile from outside the gate however on this occasion someone else answered. I asked that Michael Puglisi, the Serco employed Centre manager, come to the fence to discuss the situation rather than exploit his personnel whose job it was not to defend Serco management decisions. Prosocially I argued this case with the Serco staff at the gates who most appeared to be in a drone like state bar one individual who expressed his ethos of care for the detainees and who appeared to well with tears.
Eventually Michael Puglisi, Curtin Detention Centre manager drove to the fence to meet us, however remained on the other side of the barricade, and did not unlock the gate. Throughout the discussions with many of us he often contradicted himself and clearly demonstrated an agenda to inhibit the visits. At times Serco officers had explained to us that they had not received our visitor application forms, however Michael could not speak in this light as I had scanned and emailed forms to him and had spoken to him over the phone and had his acknowledgment of the forms in writing. However he disgraced himself by declaring that it was not possible for any visits to occur on the Saturday. This outrage incurred the frustration and disappointment of the civil advocates. Unperturbed Michael used a number of excuses, that appeared concocted, to describe why this could not happen, this including that new constructions were underway and one on one meeting rooms were not available and that evening visits were not possible because of the onset of poor lighting issues. However these were disproved as we learned visits by others who they did not know knew us and were part of us, however they had joined us from the eastern states, arriving earlier, were occurring and continued into the evening.
I explained to Michael that they were only exacerbating tensions in the Detention Centre and that these lies would backfire however at the price of human life. Ultimately he insisted that some visits would be scheduled for Sunday and Monday however he would make us aware of them on the Sunday morning and not before.
I asked Michael if he had been instructed by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to inhibit our right to visit our Asylum Seekers and therefore their right to be met by us. His body language indicated this was the case however he remained silent on the question insisting that he would organise some visits. He then changed his language to as many visits as possible. I asked him if it was true that Serco management, of which he is the Manager, told the detainees that we were ’not coming’. He seemed startled by this revelation however he firmly denied any knowledge of this. However we have it evidently that this is the case.
The detainees urged Serco officers and management for the visits to be upheld. They even organised today (Saturday) for a petition for them to proceed signed by 700 Asylum Seekers trapped, incarcerated in the Curtin Detention Centre. There are now 300 Asylum Seekers protesting at Serco’s and DIAC’s actions with a Hunger Strike. Serco’s and DIAC’s deliberate mismanagement has created an unwarranted and unnecessary situation and has directly led to a Hunger Strike and the potential for protests.
Some of 50 of us have camped nearby, and will arrive at Curtin Detention first thing in the morning, 7am for the visits. The visits must occur so we can continue to shine the light on the plight of those wrongly, immorally and cruelly incarcerated in these concentration like camps. The world must know what we witnessed and endured today and what our Asylum Seekers are enduring in these facilities, which are wrapped in cultures of secrecy and silence. You had to be here to see it to believe it. We do not know what Easter Sunday holds however we hope that a significant number of visits eventuate. We will not go away, and we will come again and again.
We have arrived at Curtin Detention, a place that wrongfully incarcerates 1500 souls, armed only with 1500 Easter eggs, bi-lingual dictionaries, books and gifts. We have been treated by Serco, DIAC, the AFP and ADF with a disregard for humanity. Their conduct is a threat to a civil and just society.
Australians are a caring people and we need to unveil our racial layers, end our racism, refuse to be hostile to those seeking Asylum and allow the caring that is in Australians to not be hindered by ignorances, prejudices, biases and other evil. We are better than this.
Our journey of 2,500 kilometres pales to a mere raindrop when compared to the Homeric Odyssies of our Asylum Seekers.