Rudd Govt no-privatisation backflip

Rudd Govt no-privatisation backflip complete with $370 million Serco detention contract

Media Release
Wednesday July 1, 2009 7:30am WST
For immediate Release
No Embargoes

"The Rudd government's blatant backflip on its 2007 ALP party platform - at the time confirmed at its National Policy Convention under Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith MP - to return immigration detention contracting to the Australian public service is complete today when UK services company Serco's Australian subsidiary Serco Australia starts operations in seven detention centres, and it is a sad day for the guarantee of duty of care and putting asylum seekers first," WA Human Rights group Project SafeCom said today.

"Mainly missed by the Australian media (see Dowjones report below), the contract sees a continuation of privatisation of all immigration detention contract services, and more importantly, not an improvement from Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), recently re-badged as G4S: Just two months ago the UK Children's Services Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green released a damning report on detention of immigration children in Yarl's Wood Immigration detention centre, operated by Serco," spokesman Jack H Smit said.

See the report at http://www.safecom.org.au/serco-australia.htm

"In the context of the presence of an extraordinary number of children as well as 'unaccompanied minors' amongst the recent arrivals on Christmas Island - recent overall numbers suggest that more than 70% of children arrived unaccompanied by primary relatives - it is a disgrace that Serco has been confirmed as the contractor for Australia, a company under whose contract children have died in custody in the UK."

"Moreover, the recent cruel death of Indigenous Elder Mr Ward while in transit from Warburton to Kalgoorlie under the 'care' of GSL in the Western Desert, where he really 'cooked to death' could have been a serious warning for the Immigration Minister Chris Evans, but nobody in the Rudd Government has flinched about Mr Ward's death."

This first day of the new financial year may be a great day for the financial stocks of Serco, but it a dark day for detention centre care in Australia, and may just prove to be an omenous day in Australia's story of how we treat refugees and asylum seekers, where nobody blinks when we put profit above people," Mr Smit concluded.

ENDS

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