In late November, at least three former employees of Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), the private company contracted by the federal government to run Australia's immigration detention centres, revealed that child abuses and other crimes have taken place and been covered up at their former workplace, Woomera immigration detention centre.
Green Left Weekly's PAUL BENEDEK spoke to JULIAN GORMLY, a barrister who has worked with refugees at Woomera, ALISTAIR GEE, from Amnesty International, and LISA MACDONALD, from the Democratic Socialist Party, about the situation at Woomera and other immigration detention centres.
From his experience of working at Woomera, Gormly believes ACM would be aware of all abuse that occurs in the detention centres. "There is very little that happens in the camps that ACM is not aware of. They operate an intelligence section known as INTEL which has a network of camp informers, even gaining intelligence from social workers."
ACM and the government implement a policy of secrecy to ensure that workers at the detention centres don't speak out about conditions in the centres. Macdonald described this policy as one where "ACM employees who witness abuse keep quiet for fear of losing their jobs and facing legal difficulties, because they all have to sign confidentiality contracts before they start working there."
The secrecy is compounded, Macdonald says, by "the federal government threatening fines [to ACM] for any 'incidents' in the camps, thus encouraging cover-ups and secrecy in order to maintain profit levels."
Recent revelations by former ACM employees have started to remove the veil of secrecy around the detention centres.
"In the past," says Gee, "when groups like Amnesty [International] and the Refugee Council of Australia spoke out about the conditions in Woomera, we were written off as biased. Now we have people who have worked in Woomera, three nurses amongst others, speaking out and showing that neither ACM nor the government are willing to resolve these abuses and ensure detainees are looked after."
Gee believes the abuses are further evidence that detention is unacceptable for any children, that human rights violations are occurring inside detention centres with impunity, and that Australia's mandatory detention of asylum seekers who have no visas is inhumane and contravenes human rights standards.
Detention for profit
Gormly, Gee and Macdonald regard the commercial contract between the private prison company ACM and the government as problematic. ACM and the government argue that the details of the contract are commercial-in-confidence, and therefor, can remain secret. This means that ACM can easily avoid any kind of public accountability for how it runs the detention centres.
Macdonald believes "detention of asylum seekers who are unable to obtain visas is criminal enough. Corporations such as ACM profiting from this detention is outrageous."
"Problems in the camp are [regarded by ACM] as a commercial rather than a human concern," adds Gormly. "And commercial interests have proved to be very effective in keeping secrets. This applies not just to ACM but to the various providers of social and legal services, all of whom fear losing their very lucrative contracts. The level of funding given to migration agents and solicitors is extremely high. With this money the government buys silence."
Gee believes that "any arrangement which treats refugees as a commodity to control and profit from is disgusting". It is inevitable, Gee said, that a private company will not provide all of the services to refugees that they are contracted to provide, in order to save money and increase their profits. He added that having a private company like ACM run the detention centres "is also a means for the government to contract out its obligations."
Gormly explains having a private prison company like ACM running the detention centres gives the federal government "political insulation" from any of the problems in the camps. "Instead of the policy of mandatory detention itself being questioned, the discourse can turn to blaming ACM, as if there would be no problems if the Australian Protective Service (APS) were back at the job."
"The other camps such as Port Hedland and Curtin which hold boat refugees have the same problems as Woomera" says Gormly. "The routines at all the camps are prison-like. There are three or four musters a day, and security is the first concern. Movement is monitored. The diet is unvaried. The detainees have no control over any significant aspect of their lives. All of the camps are breeding grounds for the type of problems recently exposed."
Gormly recalls getting a letter from a detainee in Port Hedland. The refugee wrote that "being held here is a kind of torture".
Shortly after the break-out by desperate detainees earlier this year, Gormly was in Woomera. He found that an anti-refugee newspaper editorial had been copied and was being distributed in the camp. Thinking that one of the ACM guards had circulated it, Gormly raised the matter with the immigration department's manager at the camp, who replied "Well, it mollified them when we did it at Curtin".
Gee also believes the Woomera situation is not peculiar. However, he says, "every problem is dramatically heightened by the remoteness, the inaccessibility, the failure to recognise who the detainees are, the culture of the management and the lack of knowledge by asylum seekers of what is happening with their refugee claims. Almost all of the detainees in Woomera are asylum seekers and the vast majority of them are refugees."
Winning refugee rights
Gee, Gormly and Macdonald believe that the recent Woomera revelations, following in the wake of break-outs, hunger strikes and demonstrations by refugees, as well as the growth of community actions demanding refugee rights, are a significant development.
"Before the break-outs in June this year there was little general interest in refugees," says Gormly. "During the break-outs, the human dimension of refugee issues was brought home to people."
"These abuses are nothing new," Gee adds, "but public awareness of them is. We now have to get the public to see that these abuses are endemic and inevitable under mandatory detention."
"The Woomera revelations have created an opening for the refugee rights campaign to really step up the pressure for an end to mandatory detention," argues Macdonald. "When even conservative papers like the Australian call for [immigration minister Philip] Ruddock's resignation, you know the detention system is under pressure".
Gormly warns against allowing "experts" and "spokespeople" to dominate and conservatise the debate. "Now is certainly not the time to go soft on the message that mandatory detention must end."
For the refugee rights campaign to be successful, Gormly says that it is important for the refugees themselves to be involved in the campaign. "We need to build contacts with the relevant communities, detainees and former detainees" he said.
Gee urges that the current "public attention" be translated into "action." He also believes that "the ALP must be made to realise that this [mandatory detention of refugees] is a concern that they cannot keep rolling over on."
"The Sydney Refugee Action Collective has made important steps in generating public support for full rights for refugees," says Macdonald. "Exposures of the government's inhumanity must be driven home to the fullest extent with collective actions such as the December 10 rally for human rights. It is not enough to change a detention centre manager, or to change security companies, or to change ministers, or even to change governments. The ALP is as anti-refugee as the Coalition. We need a movement which campaigns for every little win, but is not satisfied until every refugee is free."