Many healthcare workers are unaware that their super funds are being invested in the illness factory that is Manus Island prison camp. Consequently, there is a campaign to raise awareness of this fact and to demand HESTA divests from Transfield.
The ASU made some noise about the issue back in March 2014 — it appears to have had little effect, with HESTA increasing its shares in Transfield late last year; HESTA is at present listed as owning 26,375,345 shares in Transfield Services.
18th January 2015
From: Foxtrot Compound
To: Mr. Peter Sutton
We would like to say today about your policy that if you do not wish us to come to Australia, then that’s okay. It’s your country. But it does not mean you have the right to settle us in PNG.
We can tell you today this is enough, 18 months of suffering here. You claim humanity and justice, but there is none of this here.
We want to ask what kind of case takes more than 18 months to resolve?
We are not toys for you to play with and not animals to imprison us here.
We can say that when we woke up today, we are resolved to die here in order to bring back our dignity and our freedom.
It does not concern us what our destination is, but we did not come to PNG as our choice. If you send us back to where you found us, it is better for us to live with sharks and sea whales than to stay one more day with inhumane people – animals can eat humans, but here we have people who are likely to do the same.
So this is a promise Mr. Dutton we will keep going with our peaceful protest until we gain our freedom. And after all this time, force will never work with us.
And finally to all people who are sympathetic with us, we ask you to help us because here [we] witness a slow death every day.
We ask the Australian people to raise this question with their government – why does your government hide everything about Manus OPC, and not allow any of you to visit?
Could it be that the Australian people will find this place unfit for human beings to live[?]
We undertook a dangerous boat journey to escape torment and murder. We did not come ask Australia to open your doors to us, only to find more suffering and trauma. Now our biggest hope is for a solution as quick as possible, because we are all weary of [this] place.
Tomorrow on the ‘Floating Anarchy’ edition of The SUWA Show (5.30pm Friday, February 28 on 855AM, streaming live on 3CR) Dr Cam & I have a yarn with Liz Thompson about Manus Island and Alana Lentin on the Biennale of Sydney. You may remember Liz from such shows as I Was Told To Lie (Dateline) and Alana from The Case for Open Borders (overland).
“The Biennale of Sydney has taken the correct and only viable course of maintaining its partnership with Transfield.”
~ Matthew Westwood, The Australian, February 25, 2014
“Well I just think that there’s a lot of black noise here where the public discourse has been taken over by these people concerned about the refugee situation — and that’s fair enough that people are concerned about [the] refugee situation — but to target the Biennale as they have targetted [it] with this perceived sponsorship of Transfield Services is I find it offensive to start with and I find it misleading at best … What I object to is people that are trying to exploit, if you like, this public event for their political agenda as important as that political agenda might be. It’s not for them to take a position within the event when they actually have no particular role within the event … What I object to, strongly, is that people outside of the Biennale are now critical of the Biennale for not somehow addressing the issue of refugee rights when in fact there is such tenuous connection or indeed, not only just tenuous, but there’s an argument that nothing that the Biennale or its supporters is doing is wrogn.”
~ Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, PM, February 24, 2014
“The boycott, like the social-media protest, will work short-term just, as Milliss has it “to assuage art world feelings of powerlessness or horror”.”
~ Helen Razer, Daily Review, February 20, 2014
Investors in Transfield Services have turned a blind eye to political risk attached to a $1.22 billion immigration detention centre contract, sending shares in the facilities management group soaring.
Transfield shares climbed 24.5 per cent to 99¢ in heavy trade on Monday after the company said the Abbott government had granted it a 20-month contract to operate a centre on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea that has been beset by deadly violence.
The new deal expands on Transfield’s existing contract to run the government’s other offshore detention centre, on Nauru, and increases the amount the government will pay to run the two centres from about $39 million a month to about $61 million a month.
Transfield, which was until October chaired by Tony Shepherd, who is heading the government’s Commission of Audit, replaces UK-listed G4S. Violence at the centre last week claimed the life of one detainee and forced the Minister for Immigration, Scott Morrison, to admit he had initially provided incorrect information about the fracas…
• There have been several sources of ‘correct information’ regarding events and processes at Manus Island in the past few days. Former administration worker and interpreter Azita Bokan was interviewed by Richard Glover on ABC Sydney last Friday (February 21, 2014) while migration agent Liz Thompson has been interviewed by Marni Cordell for New Matilda and by Mark Davis on Dateline (February 25, 2014). Both were compelled to blow the whistle on conditions at Manus and should be congratulated for their courage in doing so.
• Immigration lawyer Wenny Theresia has penned a response to the letter by the Board of the Biennale of Sydney — the one in which it pledged undying loyalty to the Belgiorno-Nettis family, declared that the Biennale is synonymous with the Transfield brand, and which was in turn a response to the ‘Open Letter to the Board of the Sydney Biennale From Participating Artists’ (February 19, 2014) — which you can read on the xclnt xBorderOperationalMatters blog here. Tomorrow it will be the artists turn to respond.
• Finally, this Saturday in Melbourne there will be a rally at the State Library at 1pm to demand the closure of the prison camps on Manus and Nauru.
