January 3, 2003
Thirteen pairs of scissors, two chisels, home-made weapons, broken glass panels and lighter fluid have been found after searches in Australia's seven immigration detention centres.  But strip searches of the 132 men detained at Baxter and Woomera in South Australia, conducted this week, apparently uncovered little.  An Immigration Department statement refers only to two mobile phones and one screwdriver being found.  The five-day spree of violence in five of the seven immigration detention centres has left a damages bill of $8.4 million.  The bill climbed $400,000 yesterday after the Immigration Department revealed the cost of fires at Christmas Island four days ago.  (The Age)

December 29, 2002
Asylum seekers who caused more than $2 million in damage by using bedding and furniture to fuel six separate fires at the three-month-old Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia face jail terms before being deported.  One of the centre's nine compounds was destroyed after five fires began simultaneously early yesterday, and 13 people, including two guards, were taken to hospital.   Forty-seven detainees were evacuated to another compound within the centre, where another big fire broke out shortly after 3.30pm.  Eighty-one rooms were destroyed, including 17 in the second compound. Two en suite units were destroyed and a mess hall was damaged.  According to the Department of Immigration website, riots in detention centres have caused more than $5 million in damage over the past 18 months. More than three-quarters of this has occurred at Woomera Detention Centre, where six buildings were destroyed in riots in August 2000 and a further three burnt during riots in November last year.  (Sidney Morning Hearld)

December 27, 2002
Inmates at South Australia's Baxter detention centre used mattresses and newspapers to light three fires that gutted a complex of four rooms, Australasian Correctional Management said yesterday.  The fires, which caused an estimated $60,000 damage, have been referred by the Department of Immigration to Australian Federal Police for investigation.  A spokesman for Australasian Correctional Management, which is contracted to run the Baxter immigration detention centre, said the fires had been lit in the single men's complex, which included two bedrooms and two toilet areas.  (The Age)

November 6, 2002
Up to 30 detainees at South Australia's Baxter detention centre were hit by nearly 50 guards in full riot gear last week and then refused medical treatment, according to an asylum seeker.  Afghan Fahim Shah said about eight detainees were hurt last Thursday's attack in the mess where about 30 people were eating dinner.  "They threw my plate and beat me with the stick and pushed me three times with the shield to go outside from the mess," he said.  He said there had been two other incidents of brutality by Australasian Correctional Management guards at the centre since it opened about six weeks ago.  (The Age)

Borallon Correctional Centre
Queensland, Australia
Serco (formerly run by Management and Training Corporation)
August 15, 2011 9 News
Queensland's opposition has asked the auditor-general to review the state government's handling of a jail tender it has described as "dodgy". The government announced last month it would temporarily mothball Borallon prison in Ipswich, west of Brisbane, and transfer inmates to a new prison near Gatton due to be opened next year. Meanwhile, the federal government has confirmed plans to convert the jail into immigration accommodation, however no final decision has yet been made. Security company Serco, which manages Borallon jail, has been awarded the contract to operate the new jail, Southern Queensland Correctional Centre at Spring Creek. The Liberal National Party (LNP) has labelled this a "dodgy deal". LNP corrective services spokesman John-Paul Langbroek said the party had referred the matter to the auditor-general. The auditor-general's office has confirmed it received the LNP's request but as of Monday morning, it was yet to view the details. Mr Langbroek argues the government did not conduct a proper tendering process. "The way this secret deal between Serco, who currently run the prison at Borallon, and the state government has been handled raises many questions," he said. "Under the normal tendering for service process, the contract for service delivery at the new Gatton prison should have been advertised and put to the market to ensure the best value for money was achieved. "This matter deserves due consideration and that's why I have written to the auditor-general seeking advice on whether this deal is in fact legal and meets the state government's own rules and guidelines."

October 25, 2006 Townsville Bulletin
A TENDER for the state's two privately-run prisons is not a criticism of the current operators, the Queensland Government said today. Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence said new tenders to run Borallon and Arthur Gorrie correctional centres, valued at a total of $200 million, would ensure taxpayers got value for money. "It is not about the performance of the current operators,'' Ms Spence said. The Arthur Gorrie jail has been under fire in recent years over a number of deaths in custody, security failures and assaults on prisoners by staff. Borallon made headlines four years ago when a report showed it had the highest rate of illicit drug use in the state, with almost one in three prisoners using drugs. Four companies will be invited to tender: GEO Group Australia Pty Ltd, GSL Australia Pty Ltd, Management and Training Corporation Pty Ltd and Serco Australia Pty Ltd. GEO currently operates Arthur Gorrie, and Management and Training Corporation operates Borallon. Ms Spence said the contracts would be for five years, with an option for Queensland Corrective Services to extend them for a further five years. The tenders will be evaluated in the first half of next year with new contracts to start on January 1, 2008. An independent probity auditor has been contracted to oversee the entire project.

February 22, 2004
OFFICERS at a privately-run prison in Queensland will walk off the job again over the next two days. Prison officers at the Borallon Correctional Centre, near Ipswich, will lock prisoners in their cells during six-hour stoppages tomorrow and on Tuesday in a dispute over enterprise bargaining negotiations  The prison is operated by the US-based prison company Management and Training Corporation (MTC), under contract to the Queensland Government.  Last week, about 500 low and medium security inmates were locked in their cells for two hours on Monday and Tuesday morning.  The prison officers' union, the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, said it would increase the length of the stoppages if the dispute dragged on.  About 150 prison officers have been calling for a six per cent annual pay rise over the next two years but MTC offered an increase of just 1.9 per cent a year.  MTC also wants to reduce prison officers' sick leave entitlements to six days a year from eight in the last agreement which expired last month.  LHMWU spokesman Ron Simon said the union would also ban overtime at the prison.  "Each week we've increased the length and intensity, of the walkout," he said. "This time our members are stopping twice for six hours and imposing a two-week overtime ban, commencing Monday morning."  (Townsville Bulletin)

February 9, 2004
INMATES at Borallon Correctional Centre near Ipswich will be placed in lockdown mode tomorrow and Tuesday as prison officers strike in support of increased wages and benefits.  Almost 500 low and medium security inmates at the privatised prison will be locked down and managed under a skeleton staff structure for two hours from 8am (AEST) tomorrow and on Tuesday, while members of the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU) rally for a pay increase.  The prison has been run by US firm Management and Training Corporation (MTC) since September 2000, under contract to the Queensland government.  About 150 prison officers, whose current enterprise agreement expired last month, are calling for a six per cent annual pay rise over the next two years in addition to paid parental leave and income protection.  (Townsville Bulletin)

August 14, 2001
Drugs and illegal 'home brew' have been discovered during random searches in Queensland's prisons.  Four prisoners have also lost open security classification after testing positive to drugs.  Two prisoners already in custody are facing charges after random searches uncovered drugs at Borallon Correctional Centre and illegal brew at Borallon and Woodford Correctional Centres.  (ABC News)

Broadmeadows Youth Detention Center
Australia
Serco
July 26, 2011 The Age
THREE teenage asylum seekers stitched their lips together at Broadmeadows youth detention centre this weekend, posting the photos on Facebook in a plea for help. Refugee Action Collective volunteer Daniella Olea, who has previously visited the teenagers, said they were aged between 16 and 18 and arrived alone from Kuwait, Iran and Iraq. They have been detained for about a year. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced in October that he intended to release all children from detention centres by June, but Ms Olea said about 50 teenagers under the age of 18 were still at Broadmeadows. Ms Olea, who has not been allowed to visit the boys recently, said they stitched their lips shut on Sunday afternoon. She said the youths were desperate. ''Some of them haven't heard from their case managers for months.'' A wall has been built at the centre, she said, so it was no longer possible to see greenery from its outdoor area. ''Before you could see the trees. Now they have just boarded all that up.'' The Department of Immigration confirmed the self-harm and said operator Serco had provided psychological support.

Casuarina Prison
West Australia
CCA
December 7, 2000
A potentially dangerous man serving a six-year jail sentence for various theft offences escaped from a prisoner-transport van between jail and the West Australian Supreme Court. David Graeme Hintz, 24, escaped from the back of a Corrections Corporation of Australia security van as it traveled down a busy city street in rout to court. The Ministry of Justice said today's escape was the third from CCA custody since July 31, when the private contractors took over the service. (News Limited, Dec. 6, 2000)

Christmas Island Detention Center
Christmas Island
Serco
Companies Use Immigration Crackdown to Turn a Profit: Expose on immigration by Nina Bernstein at the New York Times, September 28, 2011

December 12, 2011 The Daily Telegraph
RIOTING asylum seekers have caused almost $20 million in damage to immigration detention centres - nearly double original estimates. New Department of Immigration figures show five riots at Villawood in Sydney, Christmas Island and Darwin have cost an estimated $17.6 million - and that could rise. The most damage was caused at Villawood with the repair bill reaching $9.271 million. While insurance will cover much of the costs, the government revealed it would be liable for the first $1 million of each claim, or 10 per cent of the total bill. According to documents released last Friday night, the cost of the Christmas Island riot in March is now estimated at $5.05 million - double the original figure of $2.5 million. The government claimed the subsequent riots at Villawood, when inmates set fire to several buildings a month later, will cost 50 per cent more than the $6 million originally estimated. There were two riots also at Darwin and another at Christmas Island. "The total cost of estimated damage across all five events as of October 14, 2011, is $17,636,366," the department said. "This estimate is likely to change as quotations for repairs are obtained and works undertaken." The revised costs follow the release of an independent report last week which suggested overcrowding was the cause of the tension and unrest and the trigger for the riots. But, it found no fault with the Department of Immigration or the detention centre operator, Serco. A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said, "This government's contracts with Serco require it to have full private insurance cover of its facilities, which is why the costs to the Commonwealth relating to damage caused at detention centres are so low. "In its hypocritical hysteria, the Coalition seems to have forgotten its record of passing on the costs of detention riots to the taxpayer: they had four detention centre riots in a single month - December 2002 - at a cost of many millions."

November 30, 2011 ABC
The head of the company which runs Australia's detention centres has admitted that administration staff were told to act as security during the Christmas Island riots. Serco's chief executive officer David Campbell has been answering questions before a parliamentary committee in Perth. It is looking into Serco being awarded a multi-billion dollar contract to provide services at the city's new Fiona Stanley Hospital. Mr Campbell told the committee that administration staff formed a perimeter during the Christmas Island riots. He said they were told to act as observers. Outside the hearing, the union United Voice said Serco's administrative staff were dressed in the blue polo t-shirts normally worn by security guards and were put on the front lines. The union's Dave Kelly says staff were poorly treated. "That they dressed administrative staff up as security guards and put them on the front lines, I find that absolutely amazing," he said.

November 30, 2011 The Age
THE Immigration Department was warned severe overcrowding at the detention centre on Christmas Island would cause a serious incident five months before riots broke out there. That is the finding of an independent inquiry into the Christmas Island and Villawood riots, by former public servants Allan Hawke and Helen Williams. Released yesterday, the report said the failure of the department to brief Immigration Minister Chris Bowen on the warning until March 2011 was ''highly regrettable''. The report has described conditions on Christmas Island before the riots as ''severely compromised'' - with failing sewerage systems, a ''precarious'' supply of water and access to toilets and education under stress. Detainee numbers had leapt to 2530 on the island. Knowledge Consulting warned in October 2010 that safety was compromised, accommodation was unsuitable and detainees had no meaningful activities. A freeze on processing Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum claims a year earlier caused a backlog and ''significant impact on the detention network''. The inquiry found that adding to this explosive mix was an influx of middle-class Iranian asylum seekers ''who had higher expectations of service and lower tolerance for any perceived slowness in processing or inconsistency in decision-making or failure to achieve a positive result''. Riots on Christmas Island, sparked on March 11, caused $2.5 million in damages, while riots at Villawood in Sydney a month later cost $6 million. Serco, the private company that runs the detention network, was warned of the planned mass escape and riot on Christmas Island four days earlier, but a teleconference with the Immigration Department in Canberra dismissed an informant's warning. The report blamed both riots in part on the detention network's inability to manage a core group of angry asylum seekers who had been rejected. It said 80 of the 100 detainees identified as taking part in the Christmas Island riot had received initial rejections and were waiting for a review. Thirteen of the 19 charged had been rejected as refugees at the first interview. Of the nine detainees charged over the Villawood riot, all had received a negative primary decision. The report called for the contract with Serco to be revised to improve security and co-ordination with police.

September 16, 2011 The Australian
FIREFIGHTERS have repeatedly raised concerns with the government on their capacity to respond to emergencies at Christmas Island. The Australian understands concerns were expressed with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship about the ability of volunteer firefighters to enter violent and uncontrolled situations inside the centre. The concerns are understood to have been raised at least once before violent riots in March. Yesterday, a departmental spokesman rejected the suggestion concerns had been ignored. He said detention centre operator Serco was required to have appropriate contingency arrangements to deal with a range of scenarios, including fires. "Serco works with local emergency services in developing these arrangements, which are continually reviewed to address any concerns which may be raised," the spokesman said. The fire brigade, along with the island's ambulance service, relies solely on volunteers and was on standby over many nights during the riots, in which detainees set parts of compounds on fire. Problems with the capacity of Christmas Island's emergency services to cope with increasing demand - due to the detention centre and associated influx of workers - are expected to be highlighted in an upcoming socio-economic report on the impact of detention on the island. The report's draft findings were detailed to community members at a meeting last week, where it was revealed there were serious concerns about the capacity of the fire and ambulance services. Locals interviewed for the report also spoke of high levels of exhaustion among volunteers. The co-ordinator of the island's ambulance service, volunteer Barbara Copeland, said call-outs had increased from five for the whole of 2007 to 50 so far this year. She said 95 per cent of call-outs this year were related to the island's detention compounds and included responding to self-harm incidents and evacuations to the hospital or Perth. Ms Copeland said the island's transient nature made it difficult to maintain adequate numbers of volunteer workers. The SIEV-221 boat wreck last December, in which 50 asylum-seekers died, had led some volunteers to walk away because of burn-out.

September 7, 2011 ABC
A parliamentary committee has heard many of the Christmas Island detention centre staff have not had the necessary training to deal with detainees' high rates of self harm and attempted suicide. The committee, which is assessing the impact of mandatory detention, spent two days inspecting the facilities and talking to workers there. The committee's deputy chair, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says because of the island's remoteness and the stressful nature of the work, it is difficult to recruit staff with the mental health skills needed. "Many of the workers in the centres are getting on the job training yet they are dealing with very vulnerable people," she said. "We had one man attempt to hang himself while we were visiting the facility and of course that happens to be a daily occurrence." The committee will tour the Curtin detention centre in Western Australia's far north near Derby, today. The joint select committee is visiting detention centres across Australia, assessing a range of issues relating to the cost, impact and effectiveness of mandatory detention. The group will also look at the role of government agencies and private contractors within the detention network, before making their recommendations to parliament. They are expected to hold talks with local hospital staff and workers from Serco which operates the Curtin facility.

September 6, 2011 The Australian
THE refugee lawyer who helped extract a multi-million-dollar payout for Cornelia Rau from the Howard government is preparing multiple civil lawsuits on behalf of asylum-seekers who claim they were assaulted and drugged on Christmas Island during mass escapes and rioting in March. George Newhouse will also ask West Australian police to investigate alleged assaults, sedations and wrongful detention of boatpeople as far back as July 2009 when Labor awarded a five-year contract to security firm Serco. Mr Newhouse told The Australian he was acting for detainees who had been isolated at Christmas Island's high-security "behaviour management unit" called Red Block, had their possessions taken from them and who believed sedatives had been put in their food without their knowledge. "I have been approached by a number of former detainees from Christmas Island who say that they were sedated without their consent and we are putting together a brief for the West Australian police," he said. Mr Newhouse intends to advertise in the Arabic and Farsi press for other detainees to come forward. The advertisement, entitled "A Message to All Former Immigration Detainees", states in part: "If you were assaulted, had your possessions taken from you, sedated without your consent and/or moved into restrictive custody, you may be entitled to pursue your legal rights and entitlements." The push comes six years after Ms Rau, an Australian resident, won a payout reported to be $2.6 million over her wrongful detention at Baxter detention centre. The treatment of Ms Rau, a psychiatric patient, sparked a government inquiry into the possible wrongful detention of more than 200 people. Mr Newhouse worked on that case and said yesterday he still had serious concerns about the use of force on immigration detainees, who were "obviously seriously mentally unwell". He said he regarded any sedation of anyone without their knowledge or consent as an assault. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship was not aware of any instance of detainees being sedated without their knowledge or consent. "The department requires medical intervention to occur with the person's consent within immigration detention facilities at all times. This includes sedation," a spokesman said. The Australian has been told at least two detainees allege they were assaulted and sedated on Christmas Island between March 13 and March 17 after being deemed ringleaders.

August 17, 2011 The Age
THE full extent of despair and unrest in Australia's immigration detention centres has been exposed, with documents showing 1507 detainees were hospitalised in the first six months of this year, including 72 psychiatric hospital admissions, and 213 treated for self-inflicted injuries. The documents, released to a parliamentary committee by the Department of Immigration, also show more than 700 detainees were treated for ''voluntary starvation''. And it emerged that police had been notified 264 times of possible criminal behaviour in detention centres. The figures were released as Australia's top immigration bureaucrat last night urged MPs to rethink mandatory detention of asylum seekers and asked whether the hardline policy actually deterred boat arrivals. In an extraordinary opening address to the inquiry last night, Andrew Metcalfe, secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, urged a more flexible approach. The inquiry was instigated by the opposition and Greens, and has begun to lift the veil on the secretive private contractor, Serco, that runs Australia's detention centres. Hundreds of pages of data supplied to the inquiry by the department include the time and nature of every recorded incident inside the nation's 19 detention centres. However, Serco is refusing to state how many staff it employs at each centre, claiming this is sensitive. The department told last night's hearing that Serco was not required under its contract to meet any staff-to-detainee ratios. Mr Metcalfe said Serco was refusing to disclose its staffing ratios because it was concerned detainees would find out. Last night's hearing was also told that Serco had been fined every month in 2010-11 for failing to meet contract goals. Serco has reported 871 instances of inappropriate behaviour towards its staff, and 700 instances of inappropriate behaviour between detainees. There have been five substantiated complaints against staff - but no resulting dismissals. In June alone, there were 135 critical incidents across the network, covering multiple serious injuries, assaults, two escapes and self-harm. Christmas Island is particularly plagued by suicide attempts. There were 620 self-harm incidents there in the year to June, including 193 actual acts, 31 serious attempts and 476 threatened acts. The island's four detention centres were over capacity on 27 occasions. Hunger strikes were reported at most centres, and at least 17 cases of children starving themselves were noted in the past year. The surge in incidents began in mid-2010, coinciding with a rise in boat arrivals. Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the data revealed the detention system had collapsed, with the government sitting ''in policy denial'' while centres filled. Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young said she wanted more details, including the daily cost of operating the network. Mr Metcalfe said rising unrest, self-harm and suicide were unfortunate and sad, but ''defy simple solutions''.

July 28, 2011 Big Pond News
An inquiry into the mental health of those in Aust's immigration detention centres has begun. The commonwealth ombudsman has launched an inquiry into suicide and self-harm in Australia's immigration detention centres. Allan Asher witnessed the deteriorating mental health of asylum seekers when he visited Christmas Island in June. In the week the ombudsman visited the detention centre there were more than 30 incidents of self-harm by detainees there. "This reflects an upsurge in the number of incidents of self-harm and attempted suicide reported to IHMS (International Health and Medical Services) across all immigration detention facilities," Mr Asher said on Thursday. "My investigation will assess the extent of this tragic problem." It would examine the root causes, and consider practical steps that the department and its service providers Serco and IHMS should take to identify and manage those at risk of suicide and self-harm. Mr Asher wants the investigation to give evidence-based, expert-endorsed advice on guidelines and protocols for reducing the number of suicide and self-harm incidents. The ombudsman hopes to release the results of his inquiry by the end of 2011.

July 22, 2011 The West Australian
EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE FROM THE ONLY NEWS TEAM ON THE GROUND: Asylum seekers detained on Christmas Island began rioting for the third night last night, only hours after Australian Federal Police reinforcements arrived, and amid increasing speculation the Federal Government has finalised an asylum swap deal with Malaysia. Fires were burning within the North West Point centre, including one on the roof of a building. Detainees could be clearly heard yelling in unison, but their words were indecipherable and many men could be seen pacing around the centre. A detainee from inside the centre told The West Australian that the men at the heart of the protest had raided the Green Two compound and put bags and plastic chairs on the roof and set fire to them. He said small fires had been lit inside parts of the centre. It is understood that Serco officers who worked yesterday's day shift were held back last night to help quell the protests. The Government is expected to announce a deal with Malaysia as early as Monday. Under a deal announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard in May, Malaysia will take up to 800 asylum seekers arriving by boat, in return for Australia accepting 4000 processed refugees. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said today the Malaysia agreement was a bad deal. "I don't think it's going to stop the boats," Mr Abbott told the Nine Network. "It's now two-and-a-half months since the so-called Malaysia deal was announced and I think in that time we have had 10 boats and more than 500 people arrive." Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said yesterday the violence at the island's detention centre was inappropriate after 20 to 40 detainees caused major damage. He said mattresses and a temporary building were torched before Federal police moved in to quell the riots using tear gas and bean bag bullets. "This is way out of line," Mr Bowen said. He said rioters achieved nothing except risking jail. An Iraqi detainee in his late 40s described by phone yesterday his fear during the riots as asylum seekers vented anger at delays in getting visas. He said he had been in detention on the island more than a year and though not in the riots, he understood why some chose violent protests. A department spokeswoman said applications were assessed case by case and some took longer because they were more complex.

July 22, 2011 Australian
ASYLUM seekers at Christmas Island's detention centre lit fires and destroyed property for the third evening in a row last night. Tensions boiled over about 8.30pm local time, with estimates around 100 detainees were involved in the destruction. A mattress was reportedly set alight on the roof of one of the compounds and bins were also set on fire. The island's local fire brigade was called along with Australian Federal Police officers. The AFP fired tear gas and bean bag bullets inside the detention centre during protests on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Last night a detainee from inside the centre told The Australian Online, "The situation here is very bad.'' "There's no security, it's not safe. Many people make trouble, make doors smash,'' the man who did not want to be named said. "At night the policemen have tear gas.'' The stateless asylum seeker said around 600 men had had their claims for asylum rejected and this had created frustration. "They have been here a long time and got rejected without reason ... They can't stay in detention like animals waiting, waiting with no justice.'' He said he wanted Australians to examine the reasons why the detainees were rioting and not simply ask who had participated. A spokesman from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship confirmed last night that "a few small fires'' had been lit. "The department can confirm that there is an incident underway,'' he said. "Our focus currently and that of the detention centre services provider is on doing what we can to bring the situation under control with the assistance of the AFP and local fire service,'' he said. The recent protests have seen detention centre "guards'' with just weeks of training being called upon to handcuff Christmas Island's most volatile detainees and fit them with soft helmets before locking them in isolation cells known as Red Block.

July 13, 2011 The Australian
THE company running Australia's immigration detention centres is incurring unsustainable fines from the Department of Immigration for breaches of its $712 million contract, according to a leaked email from Serco's senior operations manager at the Christmas Island detention centre. An escape on July 1 -- about three months after Australian Federal Police were sent to bolster the security at the centre and insist that electric perimeter fences be switched on -- is the latest in a string of breaches that will cost Serco dearly. The company last week appointed a full-time security manager to prevent further escapes. Guards are now stationed on the perimeter of the centre under beach umbrellas on 12-hour shifts, complaining it is too hot and that shade falls on the other side of the fence for several hours each day. Serco's senior operations manager for the detention centre, Steve Southgate, addressed colleagues about continued breaches in an email last Monday. "We can no longer remain where we are," he said. "We are getting fined for things that should have been completed. We are getting fined for not paying attention to the detail. We are getting fined for not doing what we have said we will do. We need to change our culture to a proactive culture and get ourselves out of this reactive blame culture." Mr Southgate arrived on the island after mass breakouts, unrest and rioting in March that led to the AFP taking over the centre temporarily. Those incidents are likely to have resulted in substantial fines -- called abatements -- for Serco, though the firm's contract stipulates that fines are capped at 5 per cent of whatever the company gets paid that month for running the centre where the breaches occurred. The 5 per cent cap does not apply if the breaches are deemed "significant or continuous".

June 24, 2011 The West Australian
Security guards patrolling the Christmas Island detention centre are routinely given a knife specifically designed to cut down detainees who have tried to hang themselves. In a rare insight into the conditions security officers face on a daily basis, a former security guard at the centre told The West Australian his colleagues were turning to alcohol to block out the emotional turmoil of caring for detainees on the island. The guard said during induction he was introduced to the "Hoffman" knife and told: "Before a month is out, at least four of you guards are going to have to use this knife to cut someone down." "That just freaked me out. I went from being a run of the mill security guard to doing this," he said. He said that was one of the many reasons he had quit his job with MSS Security, despite being paid $120,000 a year. He said his departure from the island was also fuelled by "disgusting" accommodation, long shifts, a lack of training and racism some guards displayed towards detainees. Guards were drinking a lot of cheap alcohol to deal with the stress, with many calling in sick when "they hit the wall," he said. Christmas Island Workers Union secretary Kaye Bernard confirmed each guard was required to clip a Hoffman knife to their belt but said there were often not enough to go around. She said one guard had broken down in tears when he told her about having to cut down a detainee who tried to hang himself. A Serco spokesman said all staff in key accommodation areas at detention centres across the country would have access to a rescue knife, basic first aid equipment and a radio. The guard was also upset his complaints to Serco, DIAC and MSS, about a another guard being racist towards refugees, had not been acted upon. But the Serco spokesman said an investigation found nothing to substantiate claims of racism.

June 10, 2011 The Age
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says calm has been restored at the Christmas Island Detention Centre and only two asylum seekers are persisting with a rooftop protest following an evening of riots on the island. Australian Federal Police officers used bean-bag bullets and capsicum spray were called in to quell a riot among 100 detainees last night. The federal police have confirmed the force was deployed at the North West Point detention centre after detainees began throwing projectiles at police and security guards. A federal police spokeswoman said the detainees had armed themselves with metal poles fashioned from sporting equipment and concrete. "During negotiations, some of the protesters began throwing projectiles at police and security guards. The AFP deployed less than lethal munitions, including chemical munitions, a bean-bag round and distraction devices, to restore order," the spokeswoman said. Police were called to the detention centre by the Immigration Department and Serco at 11pm yesterday. An Immigration Department spokeswoman said the disturbance involved two compounds of the facility, and did not involve all detainees at the centre.

June 3, 2011 The Daily Telegraph
A SAFETY order was issued to the federal government less than three weeks before riots broke out at the Villawood detention centre, warning that sections of the facility posed a serious safety and security risk. The Improvement Notice issued by Comcare, and tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, also warned the detention centre at the time could not cope with transfers of potentially violent asylum seekers from Christmas Island. It said Villawood had a "lower level" of health and safety and security. It also discovered broken and missing security cameras and found Serco staff did not have proper training to deal with asylum seekers. "There are likely to be significant risk to health and safety associated with the relocation of the Christmas Island detainees to the Villawood IDF," the April 1 report warned. The release of the report came as parliament yesterday voted to begin a joint inquiry into mandatory detention and the Villawood and Christmas Island riots. The Comcare document raised concerns specifically about the transfer of 10 asylum seekers involved in Christmas Island riots to Villawood. But the government claimed that none of the detainees involved in the Christmas Island riots was involved in the riot at Villawood. Those transferred to Villawood were under lock and key at the western Sydney facility's high security Blaxland compound when the riot broke out in a neighbouring compound. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen's spokesman last night confirmed the Minister was aware of the issues raised by Comcare at the time. "The government only approved the transfer of the clients from Christmas Island after evidence was provided to Comcare that appropriate risk management measures were in place," he said. "These were in place by the allotted deadline, before the transfer occurred and well before the incidents at Villawood." Comcare had ordered the department to take action within three days to begin training staff and to repair the security and the safety breaches. Comcare deputy CEO Steve Kibble this week said that a follow-up investigation on May 24 found it was "generally" satisfied with the Immigration Department's response to fixing the problems. But opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said that the report should have been a "flashing light" for the government. "(The government) were warned not to proceed but they went ahead anyway," Mr Morrison said. "What disturbs me about this is that a department was forced to cut corners as pressure continued to mount from the government's failed border protection policies. It also shows the significant pressure the network was already under prior to the riots."

June 2, 2011 ABC News
In a series of explosive allegations, two former employees of the private security firm which has a $756 million contract with the Federal Government claim fines for contract breaches at detention centres are being pushed to the side "for political reasons". The employees have also detailed lax security practices at the Christmas Island detention centre. The Government fines the security firm, Serco, for any breach of its contract, which can include detainee escapes, riots, or untimely transport escorts. But despite an extensive audit system, the Christmas Island insiders claim the financial penalties, or abatements, are not always recouped by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC). "The monthly abatements ran into the many hundreds of thousands of dollars [on Christmas Island] but when it would reach up into the cluster management or regional manager level, they would sort it out with DIAC and nothing would ever come to pass,'' a former Serco manager told ABC's Online Investigative Unit. "The view among senior management on the ground, who were worried about it, was that they were sweeping it under the table, probably for political reasons, as they probably didn't want it getting around how bad the situation was there. "When it got really bad, the amount mentioned that Serco were going to be abated [on Christmas Island] was $1.5 million, and always at the end of the month after they had the final abatement meeting, but it would just be pushed off to the side. "I'm sure there's a lot at stake to make it look like Serco is coping or just coping but it is just wrong for Australian taxpayers that these people are gilding the lily." In response to the allegations, a DIAC spokesperson said the abatements could not fall through the cracks. "The Department of Immigration and Citizenship follows up all breaches at all immigration detention facilities and these are taken very seriously." DIAC serves abatements against Serco once a month for unfulfilled contractual obligations yet these are "commercial in confidence" and not publicly disclosed. Serco did not return calls to the ABC prior to publication. Waste of money -- One former Serco employee alleges a range of contractual obligations were not being met on Christmas Island but that DIAC was unaware. "The wastage of money and lack of accountability was concerning. [Serco] staff could put down extra hours and they wouldn't even know where staff were - people claiming wages and they weren't even on the island," the former employee said. The allegations coincide with calls by the Opposition for a parliamentary inquiry into Australia's immigration detention system. The call is backed by the Greens and by independent MP Andrew Wilkie. The Greens also want a broader inquiry into mandatory detention and requested that DIAC table Serco abatements in last week's Senate estimates hearing. "You wouldn't have to be too clever to find a whole host of financial and human resource mismanagement, it would be plain to see," the former Serco manager said. "They would just have to ask for the records of the contract management meetings. They are all minuted and recorded, pages and pages of evidence." It is understood that acts of non-compliance such as the escapes, riots and fires at Christmas Island in mid-March incur some of the highest penalties. "There were the times when there were the big escapes and the damages occurring," the whistleblower continued. "Certainly the figures raised at meetings that I attended, there was the potential to be abated well over $1 million. That's for one month." The other insider added: "You could be greeted by a security officer sitting and having a cigarette and that's when you walked in the gate. And I'd say, 'Well, aren't you going to search my bag?' It was just not up to scratch. "You were not supposed to take cameras into the property. I had a camera in my bag since day one. People are supposed to X-ray your bag coming and going. No. Not always. "There were a whole heap of people wandering outside the camps almost on a daily basis, at will. What they were saying is that these people had escaped because the fences weren't secure. "But what was occurring and it was common knowledge among the people there - is that there were people [detainees] who were just wandering in and out of the camps." In last week's Senate estimate hearings, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young drew attention to the lack of transparency of the contract, breaches and abatements. DIAC official Fiona Lynch-Magor responded: "The Serco contract provides significant capability for the Department to ensure that the contract is appropriately administered." "We certainly have abated Serco [in] the period of this contract on many occasions for their failure to deliver the contract but it is not recorded in a recordable manner, as in X number of breaches this financial year, because of the way the abatements work." The Serco whistleblower says a paper trail would not be hard to locate. "All somebody needs to say to DIAC is, we would like to see a copy of their minutes from the abatement meetings that are held every Thursday at approximately 2:00pm [on Christmas Island]."

May 26, 2011 ABC News
Two private security whistleblowers say it is only a matter of time before an under-qualified or under-resourced colleague is partly responsible for the death of a suicidal detainee on Christmas Island. Current and former employees of contractor Serco fear soaring asylum seeker self-harm rates, combined with staff who are stretched beyond their capacities, could soon prove fatal at the immigration detention centre. The ABC investigative unit has obtained confidential documents dated April 27, April 29, May 6 and May 11, 2011, detailing 50 incidents including suicidal intent among asylum seekers, attempted hangings, self-harm with intent, homicidal thoughts and self-mutilation. "Serco had protocols to follow in respect to suicide watch and keeping them [unstable detainees] in separate areas but that wasn't occurring at all,'' the former Serco employee said. "They [Serco] certainly didn't have enough people trained to do a specified job like monitoring people who were on suicide watch - they just weren't qualified to do that. "There was a whole recording system too where these things had to be logged, and they just weren't being recorded. "We just didn't have the people to do it." The revelations come as an Australian Human Rights Commission report on Sydney's Villawood detention centre detailed extensive problems of self-harm and depression among detainees. Serco said it was not policy to comment or divulge protocol for dealing with suicidal detainees. It is understood, however, that suicidal tendencies should be picked up and reported on each client's personal file. All self-harm clients are to be reported and accessed by psychiatric nurses. Clients on suicide watch are isolated and monitored by a dedicated staff member who signs off on inspections. In the most serious cases, detainees are taken to the local medical centre or hospital for treatment. The current Serco employee believes it is "a matter of time" until a tragedy occurs, and claims there have been 241 cases of attempted self-harm by detainees in Christmas Island immigration detention facilities in April. The ABC has been unable to verify this figure. Last week, ABC News Online reported allegations by detainees at Villawood detention centre in Sydney that 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 earlier this year. Detainees say they tried to burn through the rope Ahmed Al Akabi had used to take his own life. Serco declined to comment on the allegations but in a statement to the ABC following the report, said it ran 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." Protocol -- But the former Serco employee insists staff are not appropriately qualified, nor do they have a suitable guard-to-detainee ratio to always carry out recommended protocol. "To escort one person over from one camp to the medical centre was a whole logistics exercise in itself, especially on occasions when there might be only two officers to look after 600 or so clients in a camp," they said. "Sometimes they just didn't have the people available. "DIAC (the Department of Immigration and Citizenship) would say to us, 'well, that suicide person was reported at such and such time', there was a timeline - sometimes it would be hours, sometimes even days out of date - to escort them to the local hospital or the medical centre." "There was another time when [Serco] were putting people into an empty dining room where there was an officers' station and the officers would watch them through the glass. "The officers wanted to cover up the glass because they didn't want to be watching the inmates all the time or have the inmates watching them." The Opposition intends to introduce a motion calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the nation's immigration detention centres.

May 25, 2011 ABC
The Immigration Department says riots at the Christmas Island and Villawood detention centres are estimated to have caused about $9 million in damage. A number of buildings were destroyed during violent protests at both centres earlier this year. Department spokeswoman Fiona Lynch-Magor told a Senate hearing the company that runs the centres, Serco, will make an insurance claim for the damage. "We've made some early assessments of what we think those costs will be with our insurer," she said. "But Serco will be pursuing the insurance with their own insurer." The Immigration Department also says there were not enough federal police on Christmas Island to arrest asylum seekers who escaped from the detention centre during protests earlier this year. A large group of asylum seekers broke through the detention centre fence during the riots and the Senate hearing heard they were offered a lift back to the detention centre. Department spokeswoman Jackie Wilson says it was not possible to arrest the group. "The numbers of police on the island and the need to secure the airport as a priority did not enable us to have sufficient AFP on the island to do that," she said. "We were trying to do it in a peaceful way which required working with the clients rather than using AFP, which were being used for another purpose at the time." The Opposition says the lack of federal police left the island in a vulnerable position. Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says it backs his argument for a parliamentary inquiry into the detention network. "[It's] very concerning that there were not sufficient police on the island when things broke out," he said. "What makes [this] worse is the department confirmed that the number and type of incidents were escalating and getting more serious, which was a clear indication that things were ... [the] temperature was rising and things were getting out of hand." The Government has already established a number of inquiries into the detention network.

May 6, 2011 Big Pond
A Christmas Island detention centre guard has accused management of a series of cover-ups. The guard said Serco, a private company that runs Australia's detention centres, was keeping the immigration department in the dark about the problems it faces at its facilities. Choosing to remain anonymous, he told ABC television on Thursday a management officer shredded a report detailing an incident in which he was attacked. 'You might get an unruly detainee, and Immigration will say Oh no, you can't do anything, you can't touch him' even if he pushes you, shoves ya, you just look at him,' the guard said. 'If you write him up, sometimes it goes into Bin 13 - and that's it.' He said Bin 13 was code among staff for the shredder. Asked if such cover-ups were a regular occurrence, he replied: 'I'd say so.' The man also accused Serco of inflating staff numbers and having guards on the rosters that didn't exist. 'Yep, they're not on the island, but they're on the roster.' The guard said he and his colleagues sometimes would go to work drunk, but were never punished because of the worker shortage. The ABC broadcast statements from two other Serco guards who agreed staff numbers were low. One said that during a riot in February, there had been 15 guards watching over 2500 detainees. Serco has been contacted for comment. The cover-up claims come as Immigration Minister Chris Bowen was forced to rebuke his department for not alerting him to the discovery of a homemade bomb at Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre. He conceded he should have been alerted when the primitive device was found in March, just a month before a riot and major fire broke out, damaging nine buildings.

May 10, 2011 The Australian
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 arrival of untrained security subcontractors from MSS on Christmas Island last year helped Serco fill positions at the main detention centre and other camps as the boat arrivals rose. But The Australian has been told the move took the Department of Immigration and Citizenship by surprise. "DIAC didn't know they were here, on the island, already working," one immigration worker said. Serco employs more than 100 Christmas Islanders but dissatisfaction built up between the fly-in, fly-out workers after the MSS staff discovered their Serco colleagues had extra benefits. These include a "living away from home" allowance of $103 a day and a daily allowance if they shared a room with another guard.

April 19, 2011 ABC Radio Australia News
New allegations have surfaced that staff at Australia's Christmas Island detention centre are being pressured not to report troublesome incidents. Kaye Bernard from the Christmas Island Workers union claims the company that manages the facility, Serco, has instructed workers not to report incidents, including self-harm. Ms Bernard claims it's because the company doesn't want to be fined by the Government if its found to have breached its contractual obligations. "They've certainly instructed some of our members that they will not, that they will not tolerate them reporting incidents as they are required to do over the contract with DIAC and if you do report incidents you get a window seat, you get flown off the island," she said. In a statement Serco has strongly denied the allegation.

March 26, 2011 The West Australian
Asylum seekers involved in violent protests on Christmas Island armed themselves with riot gear including shields and handcuffs stolen from detention centre security guards. The West Australian has confirmed detainees managed to seize dangerous "restraint equipment" after storming one of the centre's administration buildings early in the riots. Stolen equipment included specialist riot shields, plastic flexi-handcuffs and protective equipment. The equipment was taken from the stores of the detention service provider Serco. "Some detainees are believed to have gained access to restraint equipment, including helmets and shields. All items were subsequently recovered or accounted for," Immigration Minister Chris Bowen's spokesman said. As well as the riot equipment, detainees are known to have armed themselves with broom handles and pool cues and a kind of accelerant described by some as a form of Molotov cocktail.

March 23, 2011 Big Pond News
Federal police have arrested two men in the jungle on Christmas Island during a search for escaped detainees following break-outs and riots at the detention centre. The arrests follow conflicting government statements on whether all detainees had been accounted for after police regained control of the centre. On Tuesday, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said a first head count at the centre had not tallied, so a second count, matching detainees with their photos, was being conducted by the centre's private operator Serco. As that count was under way, AFP Operations Commander Rob Gilliland told reporters on the island that two men were taken into custody by AFP officers conducting searches near the Northwest Point detention centre on Tuesday morning. The officers 'found these two individuals in the jungle', he said. Mass break-outs preceded last week's riots, in which accommodation marquees and small buildings were burnt down as police used tear gas and 'bean-bag bullets' to quell rioters throwing molotov cocktails and rocks. At least two break-outs occurred, one involving a perimeter fence being pushed down, and up to 170 detainees roamed the island, heightening safety fears in the Christmas Island community. Police, who now number 189 on the island, have secured the centre, imposing a night-time curfew and electrifying a security fence.

March 22, 2011 The Australian
THE former manager of the Christmas Island detention centre wrote to his boss at Serco five months before last week's riots, urging the company to hire more staff to tackle security and safety failures at the overcrowded facility. The staffing proposal document written last October by then centre manager, Ray Wiley, urged Serco, which operates all the detention centres, to hire more personnel and "provide proactive intervention rather than reactive damage control". The document, obtained by The Australian, details chronic overcrowding at Christmas Island's main detention centre, including 144 detainees housed in classrooms, 92 in storerooms, 30 in a visiting area and 240 in tents. In his letter, Mr Wiley, who has since left Serco, claims the detention centre was "typically 15 staff short per day" and says "even if all posts were filled, we would struggle". "This in itself does not enable confidence in being able to manage the centre in a controlled and ordered manner, affording a safe environment for staff, clients and visitors to the centre," he says. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. .End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. After violent rioting last Thursday night in which parts of the centre were burned to the ground, the Immigration Department asked the Australian Federal Police to take over control of the facility from Serco, which has a $370 million a year contract to run Australia's detention centres. Julia Gillard warned yesterday that the asylum-seekers involved in the riots would not go unpunished, saying they should face criminal charges. After taking charge of security at the problem-plagued centre, the AFP has switched on the electric fences and yesterday patrolled the compound with a tactical police dog to move detainees to their assigned areas. Some detainees have been refusing to move to the main compounds from the burnt-out remains of the Aqua and Lilac compounds at the edge of the centre. There are fears up to 20 escaped detainees are camping out in the jungle, eating robber crabs, and yesterday AFP operational commander Chris Lines acknowledged that an official head-count had not been completed. "What I can report is that it was another calm night at the centre, the third calm night in succession," Deputy Superintendent Lines said. Serco was reportedly fined more than $4m for contract breaches earlier this year. Rosters obtained by The Australian this month show that on some night shifts since November, there have been fewer than 10 guards in compounds holding about 1600 men.

March 19, 2011 The Australian
THE rioting detainees on Christmas Island have been warned that they face 20-year jail terms and having their asylum bids rejected, as the government tries to end six days of running battles with federal police that have left the detention centre in burnt-out ruins. The rioting sparked a renewed political battle yesterday, with the Greens describing the border protection system as having reached breaking point and the Coalition demanding the government suspend the asylum applications of the rioters to send a message to other asylum-seekers. The $400 million detention centre built by the Howard government was a scene of devastation yesterday, with tents and other accommodation burnt to the ground. A group of 280 non-violent detainees were being sheltered from others who had allegedly pressured them into joining the uprising. The centre's contractor, Serco, was yesterday using barbecues to feed detainees because of damage to the kitchens where meals are prepared for almost 3000 asylum-seekers. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen rejected opposition claims that Christmas Island was out of control, saying he was satisfied the AFP had taken stewardship of the detention facility. He appointed two former senior bureaucrats to review the performance of his department and Serco. Describing the violence as inexcusable, Mr Bowen said he had the power to reject visa applications on the basis of conduct and character, in a clear warning to the ringleaders that their activities could cost them asylum even if they are not charged. Mr Bowen told The Weekend Australian yesterday jail time for the rioters would not be ruled out.

March 1, 2011 The Age
THIRTEEN people were injured, windows were smashed and three asylum seekers were arrested during a riot at the crowded Christmas Island detention centre at the weekend. Federal police used capsicum spray to subdue some of those involved in the fracas, which led to several young Afghans being separated from other asylum seekers and locked in a dining room overnight for their own protection. Sources said the altercation was similar to a violent incident earlier last month at another facility, the Darwin Airport Lodge, where hundreds of asylum seekers are being held. While the catalyst is believed to be tension between Afghan Hazara boys and the protective fathers of girls in the centre, advocates say the violence is the consequence of frustration over indefinite detention, cramped conditions and inadequate facilities. Many of the unaccompanied minors are unable to attend school on the island. All are denied access to the community oval adjacent to the centre because of a dispute with the local cricket club.

February 4, 2011 The Age
INTERPRETERS for asylum seekers on Christmas Island have been working without accreditation or translating experience. A Melbourne interpreter said unqualified staff were ill-equipped to deal with asylum seekers' issues dispassionately. ''Some of the interpreters are not competent because they are not actually interpreters,'' the source, who had worked on Christmas Island, said. ''It's not up to Immigration. They are desperate. The number of clients has gone up and demand is shocking.'' For certain dialects, the interpreter said, it was impossible to meet demand from the pool of trained professionals within Australia. The comments follow a report by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Allan Asher, which found asylum seekers had been assigned interpreters who did not speak their language and were recording incorrect information on their asylum claims. Amnesty International Australia said the problems were common to detention centres in Darwin and at Curtin in Western Australia.

December 2, 2010 Daily Telegraph
THE Department of Immigration is investigating a brawl which broke out between 100 asylum seekers, some teenagers, at Christmas Island Detention Centre. Just before 10pm (WST) on Monday, a fight broke out at the detention centre's construction camp involving Iraqi, Iranian, Afghan asylum seekers and Indonesian boat crew. A Department spokesman said the construction camp is where many of the unaccompanied minors who arrive at Christmas Island are held and the brawl did involve teenagers. "It was just a bit of a scuffle between a bunch of teenagers really and it was brought under control fairly quickly," he said. Three detainees suffered minor injuries as a result of the fight and were taken to hospital after being assessed by the detention centre's health service providers. Police were called and the Department ordered a full investigation and report into the brawl by the centre's service provider Serco.

September 13, 2010 The Australian
A VIOLENT and bloody riot erupted between Sri Lankan and Afghan detainees at Christmas Island’s detention centre one hour after guards decided it was safe to re-open security doors separating the brawling ethnic groups. The riot on November 21 last year involved up to 200 men and saw Sri Lankan asylum-seekers brandish metal soccer goalposts and attack a vastly outnumbered group of Afghan detainees, prosecutors allege. Opening the Commonwealth’s case today against five Sri Lankan men charged with participating in a riot and possessing a weapon, Ron Davies QC said four hours before the rampage a violent argument between Sri Lankans and Afghans resulted in security doors being closed. The doors separated detainees from accommodation compounds and a communal recreation area. Mr Davies said the doors re-opened around 7pm and about an hour later tensions boiled over and the riot began, resulting in 50 people being injured. “Clients (detainees) were attacking each other with anything and everything they could, buckets, pool cues, mops, brooms, chairs,” Serco operations manager Mark Bonccorso told Perth Magistrates Court today. Mr Bonccorso - whose employer managed the centre for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship - said after the initial argument he spoke to the detainees involved who told him the problem was resolved. When the security doors were raised he assured two Afghan detainees that they could return to their compound because the Sri Lankans had told him “it was over”. But Mr Bonccorso told magistrate Steve Malley that when the riot broke out he saw one of the Afghan men he had previously reassured with severe facial injuries. “He approached me and said to me, ‘you said it would be safe’,” he said. He told the court that at one point there was at least 100 Sri Lankans moving towards 40 Afghans, some of whom were trying to retreat. “(Sri Lankans) had got towards the goal posts and they had physically ripped them apart to arm themselves with metal bars... they started to advance to the Afghans,” he said. Mr Bonccorso said he saw one Afghan man who was not participating in the riot struck in the head from behind by a Sri Lankan armed with a tree stump. He said he and other guards tried to break up the riot by arming themselves with sticks and trying to deflect blows between the asylum-seekers. “My impression was the Afghans were losing and losing pretty badly,” he said.

August 17, 2010 The Australian
IMMIGRATION officers are investigating how a Kurdish detainee escaped from Christmas Island's Detention Centre for at least nine hours today. He is back in the centre tonight after the Australian Federal Police found him about 500m from the boundary at 3.30pm local time (6.30pm AEST). The AFP took him to the local hospital, and he had no apparent injuries. The Immigration Department has ordered a report of the incident from the contractor running the centre, Serco, after a headcount at 7am yesterday confirmed someone was unaccounted for. Serco will be fined if the escape is found to have resulted from lax work practices or incompetence. Serco initially believed the man escaped by digging a hole under a perimeter fence, taking a pillow and a blanket with him into inhospitable jungle. In April, a man escaped from the centre by scaling two high fences. A department spokeswoman said the method of the most recent escape was still being investigated, but there was no evidence to show he dug himself out.

May 4, 2010 The Australian
A DISGRUNTLED detainee left his tent, scaled two wire fences and stalked off into thick jungle on Christmas Island last Friday, sparking an Australian Federal Police operation and warnings to detention centre staff not to speak about the security breach. The man was seen about 10.30am (WST) escaping from the $400 million Immigration Detention Centre, built by the Howard government with security akin to a maximum-security prison. He was spotted climbing an electric fence that The Australian understands was not activated. He was picked up by the AFP close to the centre about 2.30pm (local time). The Department of Immigration and Citizenship refused to answer questions about whether the fences were electrified, or had been since the Rudd Government placed the first detainees in the centre in December 2008. But a spokesman for the Department said the man had been gone for about an hour, between about 1.30pm and 2.30pm. "He was monitored while he was out," the spokesman said. The department and contractor Serco has told workers not to talk about the escape. Escaping from the detention centre is almost certainly futile; the tiny island is 2700km by sea from Perth. Anyone who breaks out faces sheer cliffs in one direction, jungle in another and a 20km walk to a settlement where they would stand out. The escape comes amid increasing anxiety among detainees about an apparent toughening of the Department's approach. As the man bolted, a group of Afghans inside the centre was protesting against a decision to reject 25 of them for visas. The rejections came as a shock because no Afghan asylum-seeker arriving by boat has been sent home by the Rudd Government. But Immigration Minister Chris Evans has hinted that more rejections are imminent.

March 12, 2010 The Australian
PROSECUTORS are unsure whether they have sufficient evidence against 11 asylum-seekers charged over a riot inside the Immigration Detention Centre on Christmas Island in November. The commonwealth revealed its uncertainty about the case at the Christmas Island courthouse yesterday when the nine Sri Lankan men and two Afghanis made their first appearances to answer charges of taking part in a riot and wielding weapons, including a chair. They all pleaded not guilty after arriving under guard in a minibus from the Phosphate Hill detention compound. Prosecutor Joel Grinceri told the court the commonwealth needed more time to assess the evidence and find out about the availability of witnesses to the riot. "The commonwealth DPP is not in possession of all relevant material from the Australian Federal Police to enable proper consideration of the sufficiency of the evidence and the possible approach to prosecute these persons," Mr Grinceri said. The Australian understands CCTV footage of some crucial parts of the rioting either does not exist or is of poor quality. Julian Burnside QC has been asked to represent the asylum-seekers if the matters go to trial. "Identification will be a major issue in this case," Mr Burnside told The Australian. "The role of Serco (the contractor that runs the detention centre and supplies guards) in the disturbance will also be an issue."

February 27, 2010 Green Left Weekly
An asylum seeker accused of rioting in the Christmas Island detention centre on November 21 recently contacted a refugee advocate about living conditions inside. The refugee advocate asked Green Left Weekly to withhold both their name. At the trial of the accused rioters on January 20, the magistrate did not issue orders to move them. Yet the accused were moved to “red compound”. The asylum seeker said they felt violated by surveillance cameras in the toilets, and complained about this. They have since been moved to the centre’s “alpha compound”. There are no surveillance cameras in the toilets at the alpha compound, but it is more crowded. The asylum seeker said he was in a 12-by-10 foot room with two others. It was too small to fit a table or cupboard, or to display religious items. He said they were not allowed out to the oval, church or the pool. They were surrounded by an electric fence. They had access to mobile phones in red compound, but they are banned in alpha compound. There are two computers for 100 people. He wrote: “We can’t inform this message [to] anybody, so I inform you: what can we do?” He was distraught about the fate of his family, fearful of his fate in detention, and desperate to continue tertiary studies. He was very appreciative of what practical help the refugee advocate could provide, which was to send him books on learning English. That there was a need to send books suggests little had changed since a 2003 report characterised the detention centre’s library services to asylum seekers as “leftovers and scraps”. The living conditions sounded like a Siberian prison camp under Stalin. Serco, the company that runs the privatised detention centre, refused to speak to GLW. However, a Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) spokesperson answered some questions by email. DIAC advised that if refugees are unhappy with their living conditions they can “raise such issues with the detention services provider”. The refugee advocate told GLW that the ombudsman plans to visit the island. It is not clear if the ombudsman will have access to complaints. There is a higher security area known as “red compound”. Surveillance of toilet areas is used only if inmates pose a very high risk to themselves or others. Alpha compound is an “ordinary holding area”, DIAC told GLW. Asylum seekers are given 50 credit points (worth about $1) per week with which they can purchase items such as cigarettes or phone cards to use with fixed phones. According to DIAC, many of the books available were “sourced from the Christmas Island local school, while some books, magazines and newspapers have been donated by people living on the island”. However, a “large order” of Tamil books that includes novels, cricket books and magazines had just been delivered. Given the serious gap between the asylum seeker’s evidence and DIAC’s description, it is of grave concern that ordinary Australians cannot freely contact staff or residents at the centre. Serco Australia has pledged to “meet the highest standards of performance and accountability”. But has it?

November 24, 2009 The Age
RIOTING refugees could be kicked out of Australia for their part in a wild brawl that broke out in Christmas Island's detention centre on Saturday night. Security is also set to be beefed up following the riot, in which 150 Afghan and Tamil asylum seekers attacked each other with pool cues, brooms and tree branches. The fight was sparked by a dispute over a game of pool. As a Federal Police probe began, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned that the ringleaders had jeopardised their asylum claims: ''If a detainee on Christmas Island has committed a serious offence this will be taken into consideration as part of the assessment as to whether or not they are granted a visa.'' A fourth asylum seeker who was badly injured in the brawl was flown to Perth for treatment, joining three other men already in Fremantle Hospital, in a stable condition. While 43 asylum seekers were hurt, five guards employed by the centre's manager Serco suffered minor injuries. Immigration Minister Chris Evans said the warring groups were being kept separate and he promised tighter security. The problem started when two Afghan men using a pool table refused to give it up and taunted waiting Tamils, a source said. ''The Afghans kept heckling and wouldn't get out. Normally when two people lose, they leave and let the next two have a go. The men exchanged foul language and one Afghan hit the Tamil guy and the Tamil guy hit back and then it escalated with pool cues,'' the source said. A fight erupted and continued for 45 minutes before it was broken up by Serco staff. After detainees were locked in their rooms for an hour, those treated for wounds returned to find 50 Afghan men waiting. Another brawl erupted. The source said Sinhalese Sri Lankans backed Tamil countrymen in the fight that left some with broken bones and head injuries. Senator Evans dismissed suggestions ethnic tensions, such as resentment towards the Afghans for getting visas quicker, triggered the fight. He said Sri Lankan men had become increasingly anxious after some of their countrymen were deported a few weeks ago. ''There has been some increased tension around the Sri Lankans in particular being a bit concerned, as we have had some people removed back to Sri Lanka,'' Mr Evans said. He added he was ''quite comfortable'' that the centre was being managed properly, despite becoming increasingly overcrowded as more detainees were squeezed in.

Corrections Corporation of Australia
CCA
January 21, 2006 Sidney Morning Herald
HERE'S a conundrum for you. While the introduction of super fund choice mid last year was supposed to open up the options for the placement of your retirement savings, a growing number of fund members are finding their options shrinking. That's because choice, and the introduction of a new licensing regime by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, are forcing fund trustees to seriously rethink their commitment to running a fund. A recent Federal Court case involving trustees sued by fund members for losses incurred because their fund was not adequately diversified will further test that commitment. The court case, Kernaghan v Corrections Corporation of Australia Staff Superannuation Pty Ltd, revolved around whether the trustees were able to claim on their liability insurance, as they had settled out of court with the 73 fund members who originally sued them. But it highlights how even a fund that has produced good performance can run into problems if the trustees don't do their job properly. In a nutshell, the case arose because the super fund, which had $5 million of its $6.5 million in real estate investments, was suddenly faced with having to pay out a large number of fund members due to retrenchments. The employer sponsoring the fund lost two contracts in the second half of 2000 and the fund needed more than $4.6 million to pay out members' entitlements before the end of that year. While the fund had $1.5 million in liquid assets, its major asset was $4.2 million tied up in units in a trust which owned two properties in Queensland. It also owned two industrial properties in Victoria valued at $310,000 and $550,000 respectively. To pay out members it was forced to put the properties on the market. The Queensland properties, in particular, represented a problem as the remaining period on the leases was relatively short and unless new leases could be negotiated quickly, the property was unlikely to be sold at the book values. Tensions with fund members were exacerbated when the trustees reduced the interim earnings rate on their accounts and then effectively froze their accounts so that no members could be paid out until the trustees knew what the real value of the properties would be. As you can imagine, these weren't ideal sale conditions and the properties were sold at a discount. Both Victorian properties were sold at a loss on their original sale price. The trustees, who had been warned before the retrenchments that the fund needed to be better diversified, eventually settled out of court and paid the members $275,000 plus costs, which amounted to $539,000. While one of the founding trustees of the fund strongly defended the fund's investment strategy in court and pointed to the fact that it had a strong earnings history, it was interesting to note Justice North's comments on this point. He said, strong earnings history aside, the investment strategy was fundamental flawed. "It may have been an appropriate strategy for an entrepreneurial enterprise, but it was ill advised for a fund designed to provide security for employees in their retirement and for which risk minimisation should have been a primary concern," he said. Justice North agreed with the trustees' legal advice that if the case had gone to court, the fund members would probably have succeeded. While most major super funds do have diversified investment strategies, the case sounds a couple of warnings. First, that producing good returns isn't enough. Risk management and minimisation is also an essential part of managing other people's retirement savings. And second, that liquidity is a big issue for super funds. While this fund may well have been sufficiently liquid to meet its obligations if the members hadn't been retrenched, funds need to be able to handle the unexpected. And big investments in illiquid assets like property don't let them do this - a fact that many self-managed super funds concentrating on property investments should also consider.

Curtin Detention Centre
Australia
Serco (formerly run by Global solution, GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections)
November 26, 2011 The West Australian
A Perth man once charged with people smuggling has been working as a guard at an immigration detention centre for the past year. Jarajo Zirak, 22, has been working at the Perth Airport centre but his employer, Serco, stood him down on Thursday after The Weekend West made inquiries about his employment. In a separate development, Serco, which runs Australia's immigration detention centres, has been ordered to investigate claims detainees at the Curtin centre near Derby were pressured by staff to pay money owed for their voyage to Australia. Mr Zirak, an Afghan refugee who has lived in Perth for five years, was arrested outside his family's Thornlie home in April last year and charged with organising or facilitating the proposed entry into Australia of five or more people while in Indonesia between May 22 and November 26, 2009. The charge was dropped a month later. At the time, Australian Federal Police reportedly said there were "significant changes in the strength of evidence from the witness" that were beyond the control of the AFP and prosecutors. A few months later, Serco employed Mr Zirak as a client service officer and, until this week, he had regular contact with asylum seekers. He declined to comment through his lawyer yesterday. A police check would not have shown Mr Zirak's charge because he was not convicted, but a Google search reveals media reports on his arrest. A Serco spokesman said an investigation was under way into his employment.

November 3, 2011 The Australian
A FEMALE security guard suffered head injuries when she was allegedly bashed amid rising tensions among asylum-seekers at Western Australia's Curtin Immigration Detention Centre. The woman's colleagues discovered her semi-conscious in a laundry room in the centre's accommodation compound at about 3am yesterday. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship said a small fire also had been lit in a washing machine in the laundry room, escalating fears of further attempts to burn down buildings. Centre sources told The Australian there were rising tensions at the centre with staff worried that a full-scale riot would break out. There had been several incidents in recent days, The Australian was told. The centre was reopened last year by the federal government.

September 7, 2011 ABC
A parliamentary committee has heard many of the Christmas Island detention centre staff have not had the necessary training to deal with detainees' high rates of self harm and attempted suicide. The committee, which is assessing the impact of mandatory detention, spent two days inspecting the facilities and talking to workers there. The committee's deputy chair, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says because of the island's remoteness and the stressful nature of the work, it is difficult to recruit staff with the mental health skills needed. "Many of the workers in the centres are getting on the job training yet they are dealing with very vulnerable people," she said. "We had one man attempt to hang himself while we were visiting the facility and of course that happens to be a daily occurrence." The committee will tour the Curtin detention centre in Western Australia's far north near Derby, today. The joint select committee is visiting detention centres across Australia, assessing a range of issues relating to the cost, impact and effectiveness of mandatory detention. The group will also look at the role of government agencies and private contractors within the detention network, before making their recommendations to parliament. They are expected to hold talks with local hospital staff and workers from Serco which operates the Curtin facility.

August 25, 2011 The West Australian
A former Serco employee at Curtin Detention Centre says treatment of detainees by some staff members was "outrageously brutal" and they were bullied constantly. Seven asylum seekers were flown from Curtin and put in isolation on Christmas Island on Tuesday night because of increased tensions at the remote centre, 40km from Derby. The Immigration Department confirmed two men tried to escape on Friday. They climbed an internal fence but did not get past the electric perimeter fence. A spokeswoman denied the men were injured in the incident and said they were not among three detainees denied treatment at Broome Hospital on Tuesday for speaking to a member of the public in a waiting room. The former employee, who recently resigned and asked not to be named, spoke of growing tensions at Curtin where there were three staff who had "no training, no idea and no perceived intention to provide any welfare" to detainees. "The fact two Serco guards have committed suicided since April is evidence that not everyone can live with this on their conscience," they said. An elderly Afghan man who had asked in July to be moved to a single room because he believed he "smelled" - a problem attributed to mental health issues - was manhandled by staff. They claimed a department case manager and Serco welfare officer called the man a liar after a short interview and, as he tried to leave the room, two "burly" Serco guards shoved him to the ground. He spent four days in hospital with back injuries, the former employee said. Employees were scared to talk to anyone outside the centre about such incidents, particularly the media, for fear of being identified or sacked. "The expulsion of the Serco man at Christmas Island recently and the sacking of the mental health nurse from Darwin last week is evidence that it is a real threat," they said. Habib, 28, an Afghan asylum seeker released in July after 15 months in detention, fears for friends inside. He said some staff were uncaring and detainees were scared to speak out in case it affected their status. Many were depressed after waiting many months for interviews. The immigration spokeswoman rejected claims detainees were treated badly. "We require that our staff and Serco staff treat detainees with dignity and respect," she said. There were complaint processes and allegations were always investigated. She said there were no recent complaints of mistreatment.

August 23, 2011 ABC
A refugee advocacy group says three Curtin detention centre detainees were denied medical treatment for talking to a member of the public at a hospital waiting room. Police and the Immigration Department have confirmed a confrontation happened at Broome regional hospital this morning as the detainees waited for appointments. An argument broke out between refugee advocate Jackie Rehmani and Servo security guards supervising the men. Ms Rehmani says the trouble began when Serco staff told her not to speak to the detainees. "At this point the guards became more irate and asked me to leave and to desist talking to the detainees," she said. "All I was doing was asking them their names, how long they'd been in detention and the officers were very aggressive and intimidatory towards the detainees." Ms Rehmani says it was a distressing scene. "The senior officer left to call the centre management and then (they were) taken out of the hospital and were taken back to the detention centre," she said. "These people get poor health care as it is and their specialist medical appointments were cancelled simply because a member of the public was talking to them." Police were called to attend but say no-one was charged. A spokeswoman for the Immigration Department says the Serco staff stopped the conversation to protect the privacy of the detainees.

July 11, 2011 The Australian
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.

April 25, 2011 The Age
DETENTION centres on both sides of the country were in turmoil last night, with three detainees maintaining a roof-top protest at Sydney's Villawood facility and hunger strikes under way at the Curtin Centre in Western Australia. The Sydney protesters - now in their sixth day on the roof at Villawood - claimed they are prepared to die unless their demands for asylum in Australia are met. One of the men, Majid Parhizkar, a 24-year-old Iranian, said the three were ''sick, hungry, cold, wet and dizzy'', having had nothing but water since last Wednesday. He said he would not come down until the Department of Immigration granted him a bridging visa that would allow him to stay in Australia with his mother, sister and brother. It was his second visa application rejection, 10 days ago, that prompted him to protest. The other two men - stateless Kurds Mehdi and Amir - want a meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. A protest by refugee advocates has been planned for outside the gates of Villawood today. The unrest spread to Western Australia's Curtin Air Base detention centre over the weekend, and 16 refugee activists were arrested late yesterday afternoon while blocking the access road to the centre. Ian Rintoul, from the Refugee Action Coalition, said a hunger strike and sit-in involving about 300 detainees was expected to escalate.

February 4, 2011 The Age
INTERPRETERS for asylum seekers on Christmas Island have been working without accreditation or translating experience. A Melbourne interpreter said unqualified staff were ill-equipped to deal with asylum seekers' issues dispassionately. ''Some of the interpreters are not competent because they are not actually interpreters,'' the source, who had worked on Christmas Island, said. ''It's not up to Immigration. They are desperate. The number of clients has gone up and demand is shocking.'' For certain dialects, the interpreter said, it was impossible to meet demand from the pool of trained professionals within Australia. The comments follow a report by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Allan Asher, which found asylum seekers had been assigned interpreters who did not speak their language and were recording incorrect information on their asylum claims. Amnesty International Australia said the problems were common to detention centres in Darwin and at Curtin in Western Australia.

August 29, 2010 Green Left
On August 23, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) reported that a 30-year-old man found unconscious in the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre in Western Australia had died. After his collapse on August 21, the man was taken to Derby hospital, 40 kilometres away. That night, he was transferred to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, more than 2000km south of Derby. He died the next day. DIAC would not tell Green Left Weekly the man’s name, but said it didn’t believe there were suspicious circumstances surrounding his death. A Coronial inquiry will be held. Ian Rintoul, Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson, said on August 23: “This man’s death raises yet more questions about remote detention centres. “It seems highly likely that if this man had been living in the community, the medical services to treat any medical condition and the emergency services needed to save his life may have been available for him. We want to see a complete medical audit of all the detention centres.” Under the former Howard Coalition government, immigration detention services were outsourced to GSL (Australia) Pty Ltd. GSL subcontracted medical services to International Medical Health Services (IHMS). Numerous reports exposed the handballing of responsibility under this arrangement. Curtin, Woomera and Baxter detention centres were shut down in an aura of shame. (The federal Labor government re-opened Curtin in June.) Despite its promises to end outsourcing of immigration detention services, the Rudd Labor government simply changed the service provider to SERCO, and contracted directly with IHMS to provide general and mental health care. GLW was unable to find an IHMS webpage, or any description of its services. When asked about healthcare arrangements at Curtin, and specifically whether there was a resident doctor, the DIAC spokesperson simply told GLW: “Curtin immigration detention centre (IDC) provides mental health support teams and medical staff.”

July 19, 2005 The Age
The Immigration Department is under fire again for failing to protect a woman who was sexually abused in front of her daughter in a detention centre.  The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has found that the department failed in its duty of care and breached her human rights.  The woman, an Iranian refugee from a minority religious group, complained of two violent attacks by other detainees at the Curtin detention centre in Western Australia.
In one incident a man had tried to rape her, and in another a man punched her in the chest and face, tore her clothes off and broke her finger. Her young daughter, who came to her aid, was also punched.  In preliminary findings seen by The Age, Human Rights Commission president John von Doussa slammed the department and the manager of the Curtin centre, Australasian Correctional Management.  News of his finding follows the damning indictment of the department over the illegal detention of Cornelia Rau and the mistaken deportation of Vivian Alvarez Solon.  In his report last week, former Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer identified "a serious cultural problem" and called for urgent reform.

June 2, 2005 The Australian
HE was locked up alongside convicted criminals in a maximum-security prison, but Iranian asylum-seeker Zal Shahbazi was happy to be there. "It was really much better than detention," he said. "I had a terrible time in prison, but in detention they put pressure on you mentally because you don't know when you will be free. As the Howard Government shows signs of softening on its hardline policy of mandatory detention for women and children, Mr Shahbazi recalls his blackest days in the now-defunct Curtin detention centre. In April 2002, he was locked in the mess hall with about 40 other detainees, including women and children. "Forty guards came and opened one of the doors, and they started beating us," Mr Shahbazi said. "Everyone -- even the women with kids. Everyone was yelling, we were terrified. They beat me with a baton, they beat my leg and my back." After complaining, Mr Shahbazi was arrested and sent to Broome Regional Prison, where he shared a cell and one toilet with up to eight maximum-security prisoners. His charge was damaging commonwealth property during the clash with Australasian Correctional Management guards. He was told he would be on remand for three weeks.

February 11, 2002
Federal police were investigating claims a female asylum seeker was sexually assaulted at the Curtin detention centre, Justice Minister Chris Ellison said today.  The woman had since been moved to the Baxter detention centre in South Australia as the Australian Federal Police looked into claims the Iranian woman was a victim of assault mid-last year.  Senator Ellison said the AFP was made aware last year of two separate allegations the woman had been assaulted, but neither claim involved sexual assault, and only one was referred to West Australian police.  However, human rights organisation Amnesty International intervened and wrote to the AFP alleging the assaults were sexual. (Sidney Morning News )

January 27, 2003
Six months after an alleged sexual assault at Curtin Detention Centre, Western Australia will investigate.  Federal and state police had declined to investigate the alleged attempted rape of an Iranian mother because each said it was the responsibility of the other.  But, after The Age reported the stand-off yesterday, Western Australia's Police Minister, Michelle Roberts, called for a full report from her state police commissioner, Barry Matthews.  Unfortunately, he said, state police received the complaint from detention centre management only after Curtin had largely closed and the women had been moved to Baxter in South Australia.  The alleged victim, a Sabian Mandaean (follower of John the Baptist), said in a statement to Federal Police that she was punched in the chest and face, her clothes were torn off and her finger was broken in the assault by an 18-year-old Afghan.  Her young daughter, who came to her aid, was also punched.  There is no agreement assigning responsibility for policing in detention centres, although the AFP wrote to Amnesty International that such an agreement was a "very high priority".  The AFP is negotiating agreements with each state.  In the meantime, according to Amnesty national director Mara Mousatafine, women and girls in detention centres have no legal protection against sexual violence.  (The Age)

August 19, 2002
Conditions in Australia's remote detention centres resembled metal hospitals but without proper staff and facilities, Human Rights Commissioner Sev Ozdowski said today.  The key cause of mental health problems for detainees were long periods of detention rather than detention conditions, he told federal parliamentary human rights sub-committee.  "To be perfectly honest, it looks to me that especially Woomera, Curtin and Port Hedland are a bit like mental hospitals, only without proper staff to run mental hospitals and without proper facilities."  Such problems had not existed a year ago, he said.  "This is really associated with the length of detention."  (The Age)

April 23, 2002
Hysterical scenes of bleeding asylum seekers smashing their heads against walls and demanding to be released from their cells at Curtin Detention Centre have been recorded on a video leaked to the media. The video, made by staff at the West Australian centre, showed distraught Afghani asylum seekers hurling themselves against walls in the lead up to a riot at the centre last year. Centre operator Australian Correctional Management (ACM) recorded the incident for internal purposes but it was leaked to ABC's Lateline program last night. An advocate for the detainees told Lateline that hunger strikers wanted a lawyer but authorities told them they would have to pay for their own legal representation. Since they had no money they asked if it was possible to sell their own blood so they could hire a lawyer because they had nothing else to offer, the advocate said. Lateline said the emotionally charged scenes preceded a riot last June which resulted in massive damage to the desert camp. (The Age)

April 23, 2002
Australia's inhumane detention centres should be closed, Greens Senator Bob Brown has said. Australia's inhumane detention centres should be closed, Greens Senator Bob Brown said today. Senator Brown told journalists in Hobart that leaked video footage from the Curtin Detention Centre, broadcast by ABC TV last night, was now going around the world and would further destroy Australia's good reputation. He said the centres were modern concentration camps which inflicted mental horror on men, women and children. "We don't keep rapists and murderers in jails with such harsh mental conditions as concentration camps like Woomera and Curtin," he said. Senator Brown said the government's selective reporting of events in the centres was censorship like South Africa's apartheid. (The Age)

April 23, 2002
Detainees at the Curtin Detention Centre in Western Australia were being treated humanely, Prime Minister John Howard said today. Mr Howard said he had seen video footage aired last night on the ABC depicting alleged mistreatment of asylum seekers. He said he had sought advice on allegations there was an unwillingness to provide medical attention, but advice from the Immigration Minister's office said this was not true. He said the staff at the centre in the state's north were in fact prevented from administering medical attention because of the conduct of the detainees. (The Age)

April 22, 2002
The Federal Government has warned it may use force to end a tense stand-off between asylum seekers and authorities at the Curtin detention centre in Western Australia. After three days of violent unrest, the government was losing patience, acting Immigration Minister Chris Ellison said yesterday. Negotiations were continuing with detainees armed with curtain rods, sharpened broom sticks, knives and cleavers in the main compound at the centre, he said. About 300 detainees have refused to leave the centre's main compound since rioting broke out on Friday night. Twenty-eight guards and several detainees were injured in the violence. Fires were lit in accommodation blocks, activity rooms and the kitchen were ransacked and thousands of dollars worth of equipment such as computers, sewing machines and hairdressing facilities were destroyed. (The Age)

April 21, 2002
Detainees went on a rampage at the Curtin Detention Centre in Western Australia, damaging buildings and leaving one guard in hospital after their applications for asylum were rejected. Buildings and equipment were damaged, fires were lit and blankets and clothing ransacked during the rampage, leaving what the Immigration Department described as a substantial bill. Fourteen Australian Correctional Management officers were injured during the riot which began at dinner time on Friday night. Acting Immigration Minister Chris Ellison told journalists the detainees involved had had their applications for asylum rejected. "We understand that the majority of the people involved in this disturbance had their applications rejected and are awaiting removal," Senator Ellison said. The Australian Democrats said the management of detention centres was out of control. "(Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock) must recognise that his detention regime has failed asylum seekers and failed the taxpayer," Democrats immigration spokesman Andrew Bartlett said. (Sidney Morning News)

April 20, 2002
Staff at the Curtin detention centre were injured and buildings damaged during rioting by detainees last night. An Immigration Department spokesman confirmed there was a disturbance at the centre near Derby in which several staff were hurt and buildings and property damaged. He did not know how many were involved in the riot. One staff member was taken to Derby Regional Hospital by ambulance. Natasha Verco, from the Refugee Freedom Bus organisation, said she received a call from a detainee in the centre about 8 pm pleading for help. Ms Verco claimed the man said guards were dressed in riot gear and were systematically beating people. "I could hear screaming in the background and he said there was blood everywhere," she said. But the department spokesman denied the allegation that detainees were being beaten. "The only injuries have been to the ACM (Australasian Correctional Management) officers," the spokesman said. Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock last week announced the centre, 44 kilometres from Derby, would be closed because of a drop in illegal boat people. Refugee Action Collective spokesman Ian Rintoul said Curtin should be scrapped because it was remote, inhospitable and the most repressive detention centre. (The Age)

April 11, 2002
The closure of the Curtin detention centre will badly affect the local economy, with the loss of about 20 jobs, according to the Derby-West Kimberley shire. Shire president Elsia (Elsia) Archer said she was disappointed to receive the phone call from Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock this morning that the centre would close. "I'm disappointed but I guess I knew it was going to close. We tried to keep it open," Ms Archer said. "It will have an impact on the community." Ms Archer said the closure was because the Royal Australian Air Force wanted the space at its base back. (The Age)

April 11, 2002
Woomera detention centre will be scaled down and the Curtin centre closed as part of a long term federal government plan. Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock made the announcement today following a review of detention centres across the country. The government plan developed from the review included the scaling down of Woomera, in South Australia, and the closure of West Australia's Curtin facility, he said in a statement released to reporters shortly before a press conference in Sydney. Mr Ruddock said the Baxter centre would be able to house 1,200 asylum seekers, with about two people to each room and ensuite facilities available. "It involves a number of internally configurated compounds which enable people to live in smaller communities with a high degree of amenities," Mr Ruddock said in Sydney. He said the Woomera scale-back would result in its capacity being dropped from 2000 to 800. The detention centre on Christmas Island would increase to 400 places by July and about 1,000 by the end of the year, he said. (The Age)

October 30, 2001
A prisons watchdog has described conditions in Australia's migrant detention centres as "disgraceful" and has called for an independent inspectorate to improve standards. The Inspector of Custodial Services in Western Australia, Richard Harding, says a visit to the Curtin Detention centre near Derby in June revealed overcrowded accommodation, broken toilets and inadequate medical and dental services.  Professor Harding says an independent federal inspectorate would ensure the centres are managed properly by contracted firms like Australasian Correctional Management. (World News from Australia)

June 12, 2001
They were banned from speaking to the media, but the desperate asylum-seekers refused to be silenced after risking weeks at sea to get to Australia only to be held behind barbed wire in remote outback camps.  First came the children, may skipping and giggling, holding placards declaring: "Please save us from these cages" and "Stop demonizing us."  One girl smiled shyly as she showed visitors her neatly written plea: "Please stop hating us."  The camps are normally closed to public scrutiny but Curtin was opened briefly on Sunday.  Media groups had to sign undertakings they would not interview detainees or take photographs that would identify them.  Detainees at the three biggest camps -- Port Hedland, Curtin and Woomera -- have staged peaceful breakouts and hunger strikes, sewn their lips together, and unleashed bursts of violence to protest being held, some fro years, and denied rights afforded to those refugees who arrive legally.  Critics of the camps protest the outsourcing of their management to the U.S.-owned prison management firm Australasian Correctional Management, saying it is wrong for a private firm seeking to seek profit from managing refugees.  (Reuters)

Darwin Airport Lodge Detention Centre
Darwin, Australia
Serco
January 5, 2012 North Territory News
THE Territory Coroner has called for a review into the number of nurses working at a Darwin prison after a man "suddenly" died of a heart attack in custody. Joanne Michel, health services manager at Darwin Corrections Centre, told a coronial inquest that there was only one nurse on duty when a young father died on a day she described as a "disaster". Ms Michel wrote a letter to her manager about under-staffing at the prison as a "cry for help" after the 33-year-old man's death on March 12 last year. "It was me venting my frustration," she said in November last year. NT Coroner Greg Cavanagh found yesterday that "no one was at fault" but said lessons could be learnt from the tragedy. He recommended that the NT Health Department review the "appropriate" nurse-to-patient ratio at the prison - that can house up to 700 inmates. He also asked the department to take into account the country's "best practice" when negotiating contracts for the prison's health services. "The tender process should reflect the fact that the Territory prison population is over 80 per cent Aboriginal," he said. The inquest also heard that nursing staff could not contact on-call doctor Carol Tainsch on that day because she couldn't hear her phone ring. Mr Cavanagh said it was "entirely unsatisfactory" that an after hours doctor could not be reached at the weekend. But he said: "I am not able to say whether the failure of nursing staff to reach Dr Tainsch made any difference to the tragic outcome." Mr Cavanagh also recommended that the Government implement a protocol that would give nurses more than one number to call for an after hours doctor.

December 12, 2011 The Daily Telegraph
RIOTING asylum seekers have caused almost $20 million in damage to immigration detention centres - nearly double original estimates. New Department of Immigration figures show five riots at Villawood in Sydney, Christmas Island and Darwin have cost an estimated $17.6 million - and that could rise. The most damage was caused at Villawood with the repair bill reaching $9.271 million. While insurance will cover much of the costs, the government revealed it would be liable for the first $1 million of each claim, or 10 per cent of the total bill. According to documents released last Friday night, the cost of the Christmas Island riot in March is now estimated at $5.05 million - double the original figure of $2.5 million. The government claimed the subsequent riots at Villawood, when inmates set fire to several buildings a month later, will cost 50 per cent more than the $6 million originally estimated. There were two riots also at Darwin and another at Christmas Island. "The total cost of estimated damage across all five events as of October 14, 2011, is $17,636,366," the department said. "This estimate is likely to change as quotations for repairs are obtained and works undertaken." The revised costs follow the release of an independent report last week which suggested overcrowding was the cause of the tension and unrest and the trigger for the riots. But, it found no fault with the Department of Immigration or the detention centre operator, Serco. A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said, "This government's contracts with Serco require it to have full private insurance cover of its facilities, which is why the costs to the Commonwealth relating to damage caused at detention centres are so low. "In its hypocritical hysteria, the Coalition seems to have forgotten its record of passing on the costs of detention riots to the taxpayer: they had four detention centre riots in a single month - December 2002 - at a cost of many millions."

September 20, 2011 AAP
Three asylum seekers are on the run in Darwin after slipping away from a weekend church service. The Vietnamese men were part of a group of 50 Christians who were allowed to attend the Catholic church service on Sunday, escorted by security guards. But part way through the service it is believed the men left the church and have not been seen since.  A spokeswoman for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) said local and federal police had been called in to try and locate the men. "When the service finished the detention services provider staff identified that the three detainees were missing," the spokeswoman said. "The department views any escape from our immigration detention facilities very seriously," she said. DIAC has called for an investigation and report that will include details of the guarding and security arrangements in place at the time of the escape.August 19, 2011 The Age
A MENTAL health nurse has been sacked from a Darwin detention centre for saying she believes mandatory detention contributes to mental illness in asylum seekers. A letter sent by her employer, International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), and obtained by The Age, says her job was terminated last Friday after Serco detention centre managers and Immigration Department staff complained that she was ''expressing negative political opinions'' about detention. The federal government's Detention Health Advisory Group, the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses and the Australian Psychological Society yesterday called for mandatory detention to be abandoned. Their call came after documents submitted to a parliamentary inquiry showed high levels of self-harm, with 213 detainees treated for self-inflicted injuries and 700 for ''voluntary starvation'' in the first six months of this year. The chairwoman of the advisory group, Professor Louise Newman, said she was concerned that a political view could be held against a health worker. IHMS spokeswoman Melissa Lysaght said last night that staff were entitled to political opinions but needed to work in a team environment. ''In fact, that is not a reason for terminating someone, because everyone is entitled to a political opinion,'' Ms Lysaght said. ''In hindsight, the phrasing of the letter was incorrect.'' She said the woman had been sacked for professional standards reasons, after working there for two weeks. Amanda Gordon, of the Australian Psychological Society, said yesterday there was clear scientific evidence of the harm caused by indefinite detention, which ''exacerbates trauma, and creates mental illness, in contravention of the government's own commitment to reduce it''. Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton said yesterday his attack on the mandatory detention policy at the AMA's parliamentary dinner this week had been prompted by ''terrible stories'' being reported by paediatricians and psychiatrists who went inside detention centres. Dr Paul Bauert, director of paediatrics at the Royal Darwin Hospital, said children as young as four and five had been caught up in hunger strikes that their parents were involved in, and were treated at his hospital. ''They weren't eating and required intravenous and gastric drips,'' he said.

August 14, 2011 North Territory News
DETENTION centre staff in Darwin are allegedly afraid to go to work following a melee in the Northern Immigration Detention Centre on Friday morning. Two Burmese detainees have been charged with assault over the incident. A source said Serco staff have cancelled night shifts after one guard was taken to hospital with cuts to the head and 11 other guards were allegedly assaulted. The two detainees will appear in the Darwin Magistrates Court tomorrow. The Australian Federal Police said it was inappropriate to comment because they were still investigating and the Immigration Department declined to comment because of the charges. The incident happened between 1am and 4am. The two men have been held in Australian detention for more than 21 months and are awaiting security clearance. Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network spokesman Carl O'Connor said the detainees rang him after the incident looking to complain to police. One of the men allegedly told DASSAN that two guards "covered us and the rest others twist from leg, twist my hands and push down the floor". "A male supervisor stepped on my stomach and stepped again on my cheek with his knee, while another one strangle from my throat." DASSAN spokeswoman Emma Murphy said the wait in detention centres is causing distress and tension, and is a cause of recent suicide attempts.

August 12, 2011 ABC
The Immigration Department has refused to provide further detail about an incident at Darwin's detention centre that has sent a worker to hospital. The department says a number of other staff working for SERCO - the company that runs the centre - sustained minor injuries in the incident. A department spokesman says Australian Federal Police are investigating, but no further detail is being provided about the nature of the incident or the seriousness of the injuries. The news comes as an asylum seeker alleges brutality inside the detention centre. A detainee says he was bashed by SERCO staff after taking part in a peaceful rooftop protest. The Immigration Department says its been made aware of the allegations but has no reports of injuries to asylum seekers. It will not say whether the two incidents are linked.

February 11, 2011 AAP
ELEVEN asylum-seekers have been charged after a disturbance involving about 40 detainees at one of Darwin's detention centres. The 11 males were taken to the Darwin watchhouse this morning following the latest in a series of incidents at the Darwin Airport Lodge detention centre, which is used to house asylum-seeker families and unaccompanied minors. They were later charged under section 197B of the Migration Act in relation to the possession of a weapon as a detainee and were due to appear in the Darwin Magistrates Court this afternoon. The charges come after authorities revealed that six asylum-seekers had been hospitalised in the past three days as a result of several "scuffles" between detainees at the detention centre. Three of the injured detainees have since been returned to the detention centre. An immigration spokesman confirmed there had been "previous scuffles" between detainees in the days leading up to the incident. Late yesterday afternoon a disturbance at the same centre involving several asylum-seekers led to unrest between other detainees, the spokesman said. The spokesman confirmed about 20 detainees started protest action just outside the perimeter. He said police and staff engaged the group, brought the situation under control quickly and returned the detainees to the facility.

May 16, 2010 Northern Territory News
A CHINESE woman was still on the run last night - two days after she escaped detention from a Darwin motel. The Immigration Department confirmed the woman slipped away from the motel on Thursday morning and is yet to be found. The same firm, Serco, that allowed eight people to flee from Sydney's Villawood detention centre, is being blamed for her escape. A source told the Sunday Territorian that federal police had detained the woman and a Chinese man at Darwin airport after the pair allegedly arrived from a Bali flight with fake passports. The source said the woman had to be rushed to hospital when she panicked and swallowed a ring at the airport. She was allegedly left unattended at the hospital before she was moved to the Darwin motel and put into the care of security guards. The man is still believed to be in detention.

Family Court
Australia
August 26, 2003
The Family Court has freed five young siblings detained for 32 months in immigration centres, saying they had been exposed to violence and other inappropriate behaviour.  The full bench also questioned the Immigration Minister's "curious" 13-month campaign to keep them behind wire.  Supporters greeted the two teenage boys and their three young sisters - who will still be deported to Pakistan - before they were driven out of the Baxter detention centre at Port Augusta.  One of the boys had tried to hang himself while detained - mostly in now-closed Woomera - while the other had joined hunger strikes and stitched his lips together, the court heard.  Three judges found overwhelming grounds for the immediate removal of the children, who cannot be indentified.  This overturned an earlier Family Court ruling and forced the Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, to abandon a trial next month opposing their release.  "The minister's interest in detaining them in unlawful detention seems somewhat curious," the judges said.  "It seems difficult to see how the minister's legitimate interests could extend beyond ensuring the availability of the children if and when the time comes to have them removed from Australia."  The children spent their first night of freedom together since arriving by boat in Australia with their mother in January, 2001.  Their father arrived 15 months earlier, claiming to have fled the Taliban in Afghanistan, and lived in Sydney from August 2000 on a temporary protection visa.  But in May 2001 the refugee application by the mother and children was refused on the grounds they were from Pakistan, not Afghanistan.  Waiting on appeals, the father was re-detained and the two older boys in particular experienced what the full court described as "violence and other inappropriate behaviour" at Woomera. The two boys also escaped from Woomera but were returned three weeks later.  (Sidney Morning News)

August 14, 2003
A Family Court justice today appealed to Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock to show compassion to an Iranian family held in Australian detention centres for more than two years.  Justice Richard Chisholm ruled he did not have the power to release the parents and three children from detention, despite evidence of them suffering "highly damaging experiences in their time in Australia".  But the minister did have such power, he said.  "The evidence indicates that they have had terrible experiences in detention, and they are now in a serious state of mental ill health and distress," Justice Chisholm said.  "For over two years, a large number of highly qualified medical experts have been urging that they be released into the community, saying their mental health is at risk unless this happens.  "On any view, this is a serious and worrying case."  The parents and children - girls now aged 19 and 15 and a four-year-old boy - have appealed against the rejection of their visa applications which subsequently earmarked them for deportation.  They asked the Family Court to release them on an interim basis into residential housing in Adelaide until their High Court appeal was decided.  "I do not have the power or jurisdiction to make the orders sought by the applicants," Justice Chisholm said.  "Nevertheless, I hope that now that all the evidence is available, the minister might give further consideration to whether some alternative arrangements might be made that would help these unfortunate children.  "The evidence, although untested, strongly suggests that these children have had highly damaging experiences in their time in Australia."  Justice Chisholm said on evidence presented to him, the children would benefit from a release into the community but he did not have the power to do so.  "It is within the minister's legal powers to arrange this," he said.  "I express the hope that he will give careful and compassionate consideration to the urgent needs of this unfortunate family."  The family came to Australian from Iran in December 2000 and was initially held at the Woomera detention centre in South Australia's north.  The father is now held at the Baxter detention centre, also in SA's north, while the mother and children are held at a Woomera home detention program.  (The Age)

June 24, 2003
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said today he would appeal a Family Court of Australia ruling that holding children indefinitely in immigration detention was illegal.  He said applications were filed in the Family Court and High Court yesterday afternoon.  "In the event that the Family Court certificate is not granted then I will pursue the appeal directly in the High Court," Mr Ruddock said.  (The Age)

June 20, 2003
The Family Court has mounted a major challenge to the detention of children under Australian immigration laws and claimed the right to order their release.  Detaining children under such laws is probably illegal, the court ruled yesterday in a decision that could affect 108 children now in custody.  In a blow to the Federal Government's detention practices, the court claimed the right to order the release of children on welfare grounds, saying that its responsibility for their well-being overrode immigration law.  A majority decision of the full Family Court upheld the appeal of two boys and their three sisters against an earlier ruling that the court had no jurisdiction over children in detention. The court ordered that the case of the children - boys aged 14 and 12 and girls 11, nine and six - be retried urgently.  The court found that the continued detention of the five children, whose whose parents are also held under immigration law, "raises the very real possibility of these children spending their entire childhood in detention".  "It seems to us that the Migration Act cannot be interpreted to produce this effect," Chief Justice Alastair Nicholson and Justice Stephen O'Ryan said.  They added that the detention breached Australia's obligations under UN conventions and was probably "unlawful".  A psychological report to the court said the children's experiences in detention "have been superimposed on previous trauma". The children showed "unhappiness and depression and an undermining of their ability to achieve their developmental milestones".  A spokesman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said the Government might appeal against the decision.  (The Age)

June 20, 2003
The children of asylum seekers should not be kept behind razor wire, Opposition Leader Simon Crean said today.  Mr Crean was commenting after the Family Court ruled the federal government was acting illegally by indefinitely detaining children in immigration detention centres.  He said although the court's decision was a preliminary one, children of asylum seekers should not be held in camps.  "I just don't believe kids should be behind razor wire," Mr Crean told Perth radio 6PR.  (The Age)

June 19, 2003
Over 100 child asylum seekers could be released from detention after the Family Court ruled today that it is unlawful for the Federal Government to detain children indefinitely.  Chief Justice of the Family Court, Justice Alastair Nicholson, and Justice Stephen O'Ryan made the majority ruling while dealing with an appeal against another judge's decision that the court had no jurisdiction over children being held in immigration detention.  The judges agreed that the court's welfare jurisdiction extended to the protection of children in immigration detention.  (The Age)

Fulham Correctional Centre
Sale, Australia
GEO Group (formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections)
January 29, 2012 Sunday Herald Sun
TRAUMATISED prison guards who were almost burned alive during the Fulham riots have been ordered by doctors to not return to work more than 10 days after the siege. Eighteen guards were injured during the 11-hour siege at Fulham Correctional Centre in Sale on January 17, says prison operator GEO Group. One was beaten over the head with a piece of wood and four staff have not returned to the prison on medical advice, including officers trapped in a room set on fire by rioters. In the early hours of the siege, a group of 100 inmates armed with pitchforks, metal bars and wooden stakes trapped two female and two male guards in an office that overlooked the main courtyard. Unable to get into the room, the mob overturned a prison-owned buggy in front of the window and set the petrol tank on fire in a bid to force the officers out. Thick smoke filled the room and the guards lay on the ground covering their faces from the flames that reached the ceiling, Community and Public Sector Union Victoria industrial officer Andrew Capp said. "It was out of control and pure luck they survived," he told the Sunday Herald Sun. Other staff tried to reach the trapped officers, but were forced back by the prisoners brandishing rocks and parts of furniture. Using a phone in the room, the trapped guards asked the control room to have a nearby door unlocked so they could flee. One woman was treated for severe smoke inhalation. Mr Capp said all the guards reported they believed they would die in the room. GEO Group spokesman Ken Davis confirmed four guards had not yet returned to work and repairs would cost up to $50,000, with two rooms remaining closed.

January 20, 2012 The Australian
THE Victorian Corrections Commissioner has been accused of "spin" after blaming a prison riot on inmates angry at losing their pay TV and being forced to use soft toothbrushes that cannot be turned into weapons. Corrections chief Bob Hastings yesterday said the riot at Fulham Prison on Wednesday night was caused by young men "who decided that they would be disruptive and destructive" amid changes to their living standards. "Some time ago we made a decision to introduce what's called a flexible toothbrush," he said. "This is really a safety issue because unfortunately some of the prisoners with the conventional toothbrushes used those to become weapons. There's also been some issue where they have had a contract with pay TV which is coming to an end." Former prison chaplain and RMIT adjunct professor Peter Norden said the commissioner's response was "government spin" to distract the community from the issue of overcrowded and under-resourced prisons. ..."This is an absolute distraction, put out to tell people not to even worry about it," he said. "The community needs to ask bigger questions, beyond the bad behaviour of prisoners." The riot at Fulham, near Sale, 215km east of Melbourne, broke out on Wednesday afternoon when prisoners set fire to waste bins and about 30 of them ran to the roof of the facility armed with makeshift weapons. A remaining group of 11 inmates was forced from the roof with tear gas early yesterday. Prisoners involved in the riot have been transferred to Barwon and Port Philip prisons and may face criminal charges. Fulham is privately run for the Victorian government by GEO Group.

January 18, 2012 The Herald Sun
UPDATE 8.30pm: PRISONERS - some armed - have scaled fences amid a full-scale riot at a major Victorian jail. About 11 inmates are on a roof and in a recreation area of the Fulham Correctional Centre, near Sale. The prisoners, believed to be younger members of the jail population, appear to be wielding iron bars, a pick, a cricket bat, a bin lid and gardening equipment. Officers are using capsicum spray in a bid to control the situation. Police wearing riot gear are patrolling the perimeter, and the dog squad has also arrived at the prison. Inmates are reportedly protesting over new conditions at the jail. Picture: Darren Tindale Just after 5.30pm, about a dozen other prisoners were spotted by authorities scaling the southeast corner fence. Prisoners have seriously damaged one of the control rooms, ripping out electrical wires. The room also stores tear gas. CFA crews were called to the scene after unconfirmed reports of at least two fires at the prison, which has been locked down. Prison authorities were being held at bay as the prisoners brandished bar bells and other gym equipment on the northwest side of the prison. Officers from Ambulance Victoria and the CFA are on hand. Paramedics have not yet been allowed into the jail, which was in September voted the state's best employer. There are no reports of serious injuries. Up to 50 prisoners were on an oval at the jail, near Sale, when they were asked to go back inside. It was then that the inmates took a stand. A Corrections Victoria spokesman said the riot started after several inmates refused orders. "A group of prisoners failed to comply with officers' directions to return to their cells,'' he said. It is believed the prisoners revolted over new conditions at the correctional facility, which can accommodate 845 prisoners. A concerned partner of a prisoner inside the jail said a group of prisoners took over the main block of the prison. "There’s been a lot of stuff happening there and the prisoners are sick of it," she said. "It’s really dangerous and disconcerting for those waiting for people to come home." Last year, a prisoner due for release from the prison died after being beaten with what was believed to be a rolling pin.

May 16, 2011 The Age
Homicide detectives will interview an inmate at Barwon Prison over the fatal bashing of a prisoner at the Fulham Correctional Centre. A 53-year-old prisoner from the Sale jail died today after life support was turned off the The Alfred hospital last week. He had been in a coma since he was attacked and severely beaten, posssibly with a blunt instrument, at the jail on April 23. Reports today suggested the weapon may have been a rolling pin. The latest prison bashing death follows the killing of underworld figure and Barwon inmate Carl Williams last year and raises further questions about security within the state's correctional facilities. The man being questioned over the latest death has been transferred to Barwon Prison on the outskirts of Geelong. Local police had earlier co-ordinated a search through rubbish at the Kilmany tip for evidence relating to the attack at the privately run correction centre. Fulham Correctional Centre is a 777 bed medium to minimum-security facility near Sale in eastern Victoria. Prisoners prepare and cook their own meals and have access to kitchen equipment. They also manage their own household budget at the jail, which is Victoria's second private prison and the first privately operated men's prison. A report on the death will be prepared for the state coroner. A spokeswoman for the correctional facility said "at this point we are not at liberty to comment". A spokesman for Victoria Police confirmed detectives were investigating.

May 10, 2011 ABC
Police searched a tip near Sale on the weekend as part of their investigation into a vicious assault at the Fulham Prison. An inmate aged in his 50s is still in a coma in hospital after being attacked at the prison on April 23. Local detectives say they received information that important evidence could have been disposed of through the prison's rubbish system and dumped at the Kilmany Tip. Police officers and State Emergency Service crews searched the tip on Saturday but did not find what they were looking for. Detectives have not been able to speak to the victim and are waiting to question him when he comes out of his coma. No-one has been arrested or charged over the assault.

December 28, 2010 The Age
FULHAM Prison at West Sale was in lockdown last night after an inmate was stabbed in the neck. Corrections Victoria spokesman Nick Higginbottom said prisoners were being kept in their cells and would not be allowed to go to the dining room or the exercise yard until the prison had the situation under control. ''It is a huge concern when these things happen.'' He said the man's injuries were not life-threatening.

September 11, 2008 The Age
COMPLAINTS about Victoria's private prisons have risen up to fourfold in the past two years, fuelling concerns by a public sector watchdog about the state's growing reliance on business to provide government services. State Ombudsman George Brouwer yesterday tabled his 2007-08 annual report, vowing to shine a light on the more murky aspects of public-private partnerships and outsourcing and noting the "high risk" that comes with the blurring of the private and public sectors. In the report, Mr Brouwer highlights a "growing interdependency" between government and business, which brings "a high potential for conflict situations and confusion about the ethical standards required". While issues of conflicts of interest, poor customer service and failure to fulfil legal requirements remain his core work, the Ombudsman says public-private contracts and public sector compliance with the new human rights charter are two new areas of focus. The 2008 report also shows: ■Overall complaints were up 13% to 16,344 on the previous year. ■Complaints about freedom of information rose by 16%. ■Whistleblower disclosures more than doubled. ■The largest single source (29%) of complaints related to the Justice Department. ■Local government made up 23% of complaints and the Department of Human Services 19%. Deputy Ombudsman John Taylor said his office was concerned that private sector involvement in services traditionally supplied by government may lead to the erosion of citizens' rights. He pointed to private prisons, noting 400% and 100% increases in complaints respectively about Port Phillip prison (rising to 443) and Fulham prison (129) since the 2006 annual report. While rising complaint figures are partly explained by the installation of phones for inmates, Mr Taylor described the increases as "disproportionately high". The emphasis on private contracting is a wake-up call for a state increasingly reliant on PPPs for services ranging from jails to water and now schools. Mr Taylor said the Ombudsman's office would make a point of scrutinising deals with business. "Every time there is a major contract or outsourcing of what traditionally has been a government function we have an interest; we want to make sure that the normal rights of a citizen to complain are retained and that the Government doesn't legislate away the right of an individual to complain to the Ombudsman." Individual agencies with the most complaints were VicRoads and Port Phillip Prison. ■The Government is expected to table legislation tomorrow to toughen rules and guidelines for councillors, including clarifying confusing laws on conflicts of interest.

July 10, 2008 The Age
Prisoners sparked a fire during a "disturbance'' at a private jail in south-east Victoria last night. It is understood the fire at the Fulham Correctional Centre in West Sale was started when disgruntled inmates threw a mattress over a fridge and set it alight. A Corrections Victoria spokeswoman confirmed the incident at the Fulham Correctional Centre in West Sale. Nobody was injured in the incident. "We can confirm there was a disturbance involving a number of prisoners and we can confirm a fire was set alight,'' the spokeswoman said. "The staff moved quickly to contain the incident and put out the fire.'' Fulham is a private prison housing up to 785 minimum and medium security prisoners. It is owned by GEO Group Australia.

September 16, 2007 Sunday Herald
INMATES of Fulham Correctional Centre, near Sale, are receiving personal gym training and specialised diet advice while in jail. Inmates of Fulham Correctional Centre are bulking up in a state-of-the-art gym with guidance from two sport and recreation officers. Prison sources said the officers were effectively personal trainers, giving inmates a service that would cost a member of the public up to $8000 a year. The prison has a record of providing perks for inmates and used to employ a karate sensei to teach martial arts skills. Prison sources said the $200,000 program saw officers set up training regimes for prisoners and devise diets to help them achieve maximum bulk. The source said inmates had access to a spacious cutting-edge gym which is unusual in jails. "The gym is well equipped with a section for free weights and weight training," the source said. "You see all these crooks getting absolutely everything and they get it all for nothing." The trainers are employed by the GEO Group Australia, which receives taxpayers' money to run the prison. People Against Lenient Sentencing president Steve Medcraft slammed the jail's personal trainers. "Rehabilitation has taken on a new meaning. Life's better inside than outside," he said. Crime Victims Support Association president Noel McNamara said: "On the outside world you pay a small fortune to have these sessions," he said. "To have them free for people who are supposed to be paying their debt to society is an insult to victims of crime." A Fulham Correctional Centre spokesman said: "Keeping inmates healthy means they have fewer medical problems and are a lower cost to taxpayers."

December 22, 2005 The Age
THE murder of a prisoner was "a travesty" that happened at a time of inadequate supervision and searches at the Fulham Correctional Centre, a coroner has found. Paul Anthony Shaw, 30, was stabbed to death on November 11, 1999, in the protection unit at Fulham with a home-made knife known as a "shiv". Coroner Phillip Byrne found this week that two other prisoners, Benjamin Kyriacou and Jason Los, were implicated in Shaw's death. Both have already been tried and acquitted of Shaw's murder. He ruled that there had been a failure of staff to appreciate impending trouble in the unit, due to an inadequate level of supervision, surveillance and monitoring. He said the prison's private operators, Australasian Correctional Management, had inadequately audited implements such as the broom from which the "shiv" had been made. "Incarceration obviously represents a loss of liberty. It is a travesty when it results in a prisoner losing his life," Mr Byrne said.

September 27, 2005 ABC
Unions and management at Fulham Prison near Sale, in south-east Victoria, are still negotiating to end a dispute over pay and leave which has lead to work bans. Prison guards are refusing to process new prisoners, escort inmates to court, or conduct urine tests. They are also refusing to lock or unlock prison cells unless a supervisor is present. The Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) has deemed the work bans lawful and has ordered both parties into conciliation. John Crane from the Community and Public Sector Union says the 12 per cent pay offer for guards is inadequate. "There are two private prisons in Victoria - the other private prison gets seven weeks leave per year," he said. "The workers at Fulham certainly don't get that, so we're hoping to at least bridge the gap with regard to leave. "If we can't do it with leave, we'd like to address other components which would address workers' concerns."

September 26, 2005 The Australian
THE Australian Industrial Relations Commission will today decide if prison guards at a privately-owned Victorian jail can continue work bans imposed in support of an enterprise bargaining claim. The prison is operated by the GEO Group Australia at Sale, 200 km east of Melbourne. The prison workers, members of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), have been pushing for better wages and conditions in enterprise bargaining negotiations since March, union organiser John Crane said. Their log of claims before the AIRC includes a call for seven weeks of annual leave, up from five weeks, to match warders at other private jails in Victoria, he said. Work bans have been in place for some time but were escalated on Thursday last week to include bans on overtime, paperwork and higher duties. Mr Crane said the company moved to terminate the bargaining period when the new bans were introduced. The AIRC will rule on that issue today, he said.

September 12, 2005 ABC Gippsland
Prison guards at the Fulham Correctional Centre near Sale have stepped up industrial action after failed negotiations last week. The US company running Fulham, GEO, has offered guards the 12 per cent pay rise they want, but will not pay them two weeks extra annual leave. Stage two work bans are now in force that include bans on prison programs and some escorts and urine sample collections. "I'm not really sure what the public sector is paying and getting, we do have an annualised salary for our staff, it's been negotiated with staff and finalised through the CPSU [Community and Public Sector Union] over two previous EBA [enterprise bargaining agreement] processes and negotiations so we'd like to look at Fulham as a stand-alone business in a sense, we don't really compare ourselves with the public sector," he said. The CPSU has taken a swipe at the State Government for letting private companies run correctional facilities. The union's John Crane says guards get paid up to 40 per cent less than those in the public system. Mr Crane also says the Government has not honoured the promise of its last Corrections Minister. "Andre Haermeyer, stood out the front of the Fulham Correctional Centre and made a promise that the Labor Government would no longer continue to support private prisons, and made a commitment that prisons are the responsibility, for their operation, within government - now the Government have sat on their hands," he said.

May 5, 2005 Herald Sun
VICTORIA Police are hunting an escapee from a private prison in eastern Victoria. Saim Yalniz, 44, was last seen at the privately run Fulham Corrections Centre, west of Sale, between 6pm (AEST) and 9.10pm yesterday, police said. He was discovered missing by prison officers when he failed to attend the 9pm muster at the prison.

May 27, 2003
The operation of the Fulham prison in Sale will be investigated following allegations of mismanagement levelled against its private operator, Australasian Correctional Management.  State Corrections Minister Andre Haermeyer has asked the Justice Department for probity checks on the Fulham Correctional Centre. The move follows allegations raised last week about ACM's management of the now-closed Woomera asylum-seeker detention centre in South Australia.  Federal Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has instructed his department to investigate allegations made by former Woomera staff that ACM defrauded the Government of millions of dollars by misrepresenting staff levels and health and education programs provided to detainees. ACM has denied the charges.  (The Age)

May 15, 2001
Victorian prison managers have rejected claims that inmates are being subjected to illegal daily body searches.  The claims were made by prisoners at the privately run Port Philip and Fulham jails.  John Myers, the general manager of Australasian Correctional Management, which also runs the Fulham prison at Sale, says the allegation about cavity searches is wrong.  "Searching is an important aspect of any prison operation."  (ABC News)

Group 4 Securicor (formerly Global Solutions)
Companies Use Immigration Crackdown to Turn a Profit: Expose on immigration by Nina Bernstein at the New York Times, September 28, 2011
Duty of Care: Expose by Clare Sambrook on G4S and the death of Aboriginal elder Mr. Ward. June 8, 2011

July 6, 2011 WA Today
The family of Aboriginal elder Mr Ward, who died in custody, is calling for any court fines due to be issued today against those responsible for the death to be invested in a community Environmental Science Centre. Warburton man Mr Ward, whose first name is not used for cultural reasons, died from heat stroke in the back of a prison van, with no working cooling system, after being driven 360 kilometres from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in 42-degree heat in 2008. State Coroner Alastair Hope conducted an inquest into the death in 2009, concluding the department, private prison security firm G4S and the two drivers had contributed to Mr Ward's death. The state government and G4S have since pleaded guilty to failing to prevent the death of Mr Ward, after charges were sought by WorkSafe WA earlier this year. Both parties are due to be sentenced in the Kalgoorlie Magistrate's Court today and are expected to face heavy fines of up to $400,000 each. In anticipation of the decision, Ward family spokesperson Daisy Ward has written to Attorney-General Christian Porter asking for the fines to be reinvested in the development of a beneficial science centre in the remote community of Patjarr in the Gibson Desert rather than being put back into government revenue. Ms Ward wrote: "I believe that when the magistrate brings down his sentence, the penalty put on your government will come from consolidated revenue and then be paid back into consolidated revenue. "This is both hurtful and painful to us. This pain does not go away from us. Where is the penalty? ... Any penalty that the company, G4S, has to pay will also go back to your government. "... If the government is getting the money, could you think about giving us the penalty monies because then it really is a penalty." An environmental science centre would reflect the work carried out by Mr Ward to educate environmental science students about indigenous land management, according to his family. "We believe that this will give our families and communities some justice for what happened, and will act as a living legacy of his work," Ms Ward said. "If the fines imposed are paid to the government, this will not bring any justice for what happened to my cousin."

July 5, 2011 The Advertiser
A PRIVATE security firm responsible for prisoner transport has been fined $50,000. This comes after a review into the March escape from custody of Drew Claude Griffiths. The review found private security firm G4S had failed to secure a controlled entry point and van door on March 22 in the prisoner hold area of the Parole Board's Adelaide premises, allowing Griffiths to escape. He was recaptured on March 25 by STAR Group officers. Correctional Services Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the fine sent a strong message to G4S. "This is a message for G4S that any escape is unacceptable," Mr Koutsantonis said. "I am getting sick and tired of prisoners escaping secure custody."

January 18, 2011 The Age
THE wife of an Aboriginal elder who died of heatstroke in the back of a prison van says she is ''happy and relieved'' that Western Australia's work safety watchdog will lay charges over his death. WorkSafe WA has laid four charges under the Occupational Safety and Health Act against the state government, the transport company and the two staff involved. Mr Ward, 46, who cannot be fully named for cultural reasons, died of heatstroke in the prison van in January 2008. He was being transported from Laverton to Kalgoorlie on a drink-driving charge. WorkSafe charged the Department of Corrective Services with failing to ensure non-employees were not exposed to hazards. Transport contractor G4S was charged with failing to ensure the safety and health of a non-employee for the transportation of people in custody. Drivers Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell were charged with failing to take reasonable care to avoid affecting the safety or health of the person in custody. Mr Ward's wife said the charges had been ''a long time coming''.

July 29, 2010 WA Today
The family of an Aboriginal elder who roasted to death in searing heat in the back of a prison van will receive a $3.2 million compensation payment from the WA government, one of the largest such payouts in Australian history. It is an ex-gratia settlement by the government to the family of Mr Ward, whose full name cannot be used for cultural reasons, and includes a $200,000 interim payment already awarded. Attorney-General Christian Porter today revealed $1.4 million of the money would go to Mr Ward's widow, Nancy Donegan, with amounts of $400,000 to be placed in trust accounts for each of her four children. Mr Ward, 46, of Warburton, died in January 2008 while being transported 360 kilometres from Laverton to Kalgoorlie to face a drink-driving charge. Temperatures in the van, operated by private security company G4S, reached more than 50 degrees after it was revealed the air-conditioning in the van was broken. The compensation - which Mr Porter said was one of the largest ex-gratia payments by a government in Australian history, as well as that of common law countries - came after negotiations with the family's lawyers, the Aboriginal Legal Service, and on receipt of legal advice detailing what action could be brought against the state, and what that case might look like. It represented an "unequivocal apology" by the government. "It's meant to show contrition... deep, deep, remorse for what has occurred," Mr Porter said. It also took into account the fact that no criminal charges would be laid. While it did not come with an admission of liability, Ms Donegan could still take legal action if she chose. An "initial view" was that legal action would be likely, Mr Porter said. "I don't know if that position will change by virtue of this payment," he said. "If this does not bring finality to the family, (if civil action was to be launched), we don't want to stand in the way of Ms Donegan embarking on that action." ALS chief executive Dennis Eggington said that his organisation would consult with Mr Ward's family about possible civil proceedings against both the government and G4S. The ALS also requested further information to determine whether it would apply to have a coronial inquest into the death reopened. He described the culpability of G4S as "astronomical" and called on the company to apologise. "That's the least G4S can do," he said. "They have been very quiet in all of this. We've been very disappointed." ALS director of legal services Peter Collins said the role of G4S in Mr Ward's death was "absolutely diabolical". "It was their van, their employees driving the van, at a bare minimum (G4S) should be offering compensation to the family," he said.

July 28, 2010 Scoop
A private prison company that is bidding to run Mt Eden remand prison is under scrutiny in Australia for failing to make recommended changes after a high profile death in custody, said the Green Party today. An Australian parliamentary inquiry this week has heard that G4S has not implemented all the recommendations of an inquiry into the death of an Aboriginal elder in 2008. In particular, G4S has not been providing training to its workers in remote areas, according to Ian Johnston, the Australian Department of Corrective Services Commissioner. Green Party Corrections spokesperson David Clendon said “All of the prison corporations bidding to run Mt Eden remand prison have skeletons in their closets. It’s time for John Key’s Government to review whether any of these companies are suitable to operate in New Zealand,” said. “It is not good enough for the Minister to hide behind the tender process. She needs to let the public know what the minimum standards are for prison corporations who want to operate in New Zealand.” There had been two damning reports of G4S UK operations in the last month and now their Australian operations were coming under scrutiny, added Mr Clendon. “New Zealand’s public prisons are a long way from perfect but the evidence shows that privatisation is no magic bullet. It will not make our prisons safer, better or cheaper. “The community and public sector have lots of good innovative ideas about how the prison system can be improved. The Government should listen to them rather than flogging off prison management to corporations. “Private prisons have to make a profit, which means either cut backs on staff levels and rehabilitation, or charging more per prisoner. The perverse incentive to make a profit out of prisoners is at the heart of the problem,” said Mr Clendon.

July 2, 2010 APP
Protesters over an Aboriginal elder's death from heat stroke in a prison van have accused the West Australian Director of Public Prosecutions of racism for not laying charges. More than 100 people rallied outside DPP Joe McGrath's office in downtown Perth office on Friday chanting "Racist Police" and "Racist DPP". Mr McGrath announced on Monday that no charges would be laid against two security guards over the 46-year-old elder's death because there was insufficient evidence of criminal negligence.

June 27, 2010 The Western Australian
The State's top prosecutor has told the family of an Aboriginal elder who died of heatstroke in the back of a prison van that criminal charges will not be laid over his shocking treatment. The West Australian understands that DPP Joe McGrath flew to the remote community of Warburton over the weekend where he broke the news to relatives of Mr Ward. The decision is expected to get an angry reaction from family members who have long called for charges to be laid over the matter. The West Australian was unable to contact Mr Ward's relatives today. A spokeswoman for the DPP declined to comment. The latest development comes a year after State Coroner Alastair Hope handed down a damning report on the disgraceful treatment of Mr Ward, whose first name is not used for cultural reasons. Mr Hope found two transport guards, Nina Stokes and Graham Powell, the Department of Corrective Services and private prison transport company G4S had contributed to Mr Ward's death. Mr Ward died after being driven 360km in a prison van from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in 42C without air-conditioning in January 2008. Mr Ward's cousin told The West Australian earlier this month that that the matter had dragged on too long and the family wanted both drivers charged as soon as possible over the death. Daisy Ward said at the time that family members were getting frustrated about the lack of action and wanted justice. "I still want them to lay a charge," she said last month. "If it was an Aboriginal person that did that, they would get thrown behind bars. My cousin was like in a furnace…like he was cooked alive in the back of the van." Deaths in Custody Watch Committee Marc Newhouse said this afternoon that he was shocked and dismayed to learn that the DPP would not press charges against the two guards who transported Mr Ward. He said the information on how the DPP reached the decision needed to be released publicly. "There has basically been a lack of transparency in this whole process," he said. "It just highlights that there are some serious flaws in our justice system that when something of this nature happens and no-one is brought to account for negligence." Mr Newhouse said Mr Ward's family and community of Warburton would be devastated by the decision. "It is a complete kick in the guts," he said. "It is going to do nothing for Aboriginal people's confidence in the criminal justice system and particularly where Aboriginal people are the victims." "The community has been very, very patient, including the family, and that patience has just ended." Mr Newhouse said the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee would seek legal advice to determine whether charges could be brought against the Department of Corrective Services or private prisoner transport company, G4S. Mr Hope referred his report to the DPP under a section of the legislation which allows his findings to be sent to prosecutors on the basis that he believed indictable offences may have been committed. But in his written findings, Mr Hope recognised that legal issues relating to the involvement of various individuals and organisations were "complicated". "I do not wish to create unrealistic expectations on the part of the family or in the hope that they will see 'justice' as a result of such a report (to the DPP) being made," Mr Hope said.

November 6, 2009 West Australia Today
The ongoing contract with a private prison transport company responsible for the death of an Aboriginal elder in January last year has sparked legal retaliation. The Deaths in Custody Watch Committee has told radio 6PR that it was seeking independent legal advice to appeal the decision to keep the $25million a year contract between the State Government and contractor G4S. The State Coroner found that the company was responsible for the death of 46-year-old Mr Ward, who had been arrested for drink driving and was being transported 350kms to a Kalgoorlie Court when he suffered heat stroke from the 50C heat inside the unairconditioned truck. "It is outrageous and unimaginable that they [G4S] could continue their contract. They have been responsible for six deaths in Australia in less than nine years," committee spokesman Mark Newhouse said. He said the company, under its current terms, could still be responsible for two more deaths in custody and not have its contract terminated before it expired in 2011. "What is even more concerning is that in one incident, if there are four to five deaths, that is not considered a breach of contract, which is outrageous," he said. The group is also planning on mounting a public campaign to improve proper approvals for public contracts and improving the monitoring of those being transported while in custody. Mr Newhouse said there had been no evidence from the company that any improvements had been made. G4S have refused to comment on the grounds that it was a confidential contract. The Attorney General Christian Porter was also unavailable for comment.

September 30, 2009 ABC
The West Australian Government has officially responded to the coroner's findings in the case of Mr Ward, who died of heatstroke in a prisoner transport vehicle. The coroner said the Aboriginal elder's death in searing desert heat was a disgrace, as the van was "not fit for humans". But the Government has decided not terminate the contract of the private company which transported Mr Ward. The Government says it supports all of the coroner's recommendations - some of which have already been acted on. But the full response has come three months after the coroner handed down his findings, and 20 months since the tragedy occurred. The Government agrees there should be more training and monitoring of staff, and there should not be transportation of prisoners over long distances. But the Attorney-General Christian Porter says the contract with private operators G4S is likely to continue. Mr Porter has suggested the company may have to pay a penalty. "The penalties that you've spoken of, for a death for instance, I understand are $100,000 which seems to me to be ridiculous in the scope of what occurred here," he said. "But again, the question about termination is very unfortunately a question about the legality of being able to terminate under the terms of the present contract." The coroner called for the prisoner transport fleet to be completely replaced. This will not happen until the end of next year. Mr Porter says responsibility for transporting prisoners could be brought back to the public sector. "The final decision as to whether or not this service will be public or private has not yet been made but I can say that if a determination is made to keep this service in the private sector, the contract that governs the process will be a completely different type of contract to the one that presently exists," he said. The Deaths In Custody Watch Committee says Group 4 and GSL staff have contributed to the deaths of six people in Australia. The committee's Marc Newhouse says the contract should have been terminated. "We're completely outraged that the contract with G4S - he hasn't announced the termination of it, it has to be terminated," he said. "They've been subject to critical reports by the Australian Human Rights Commission. This company is not fit to operate in this country and they should be terminated." Noongar elder Ben Taylor says he believes racism in the system is causing Aboriginal people to suffer. "There's a lotta racism there and the only ones who're gonna suffer are my people, Aboriginal people," he said. "This is got to go wider, and I'm on the Watch Committee with Marc and we're going to keep hanging on here because there's more lives that are going to be taken, and that's going to be blackfellas, Aboriginal people, my people, and that's the full stop." Mr Newhouse says the committee had also called for a speedier response in the wake of a death in custody. "That the Coroner's Act is amended in line with the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommendations, that a system of mandatory reporting be put in place so that government and other relevant bodies have to report within a certain time frame," he said. "The point of it is to save lives and to prevent lives being lost." But Mr Porter says the Labor state government should have ended the contract with the company. But the Opposition Leader Eric Ripper says there were other considerations. "You can't just terminate a contract without there being financial consequences for taxpayers and the government does have a responsibility to both protect prisoners and the interests of taxpayers," he said. "That's why this matter needs careful examination rather than a kneejerk reaction."

September 16, 2009 The West Australian
The prison watchdog’s powers will be expanded to allow him to audit individual cases as part of the Government’s response to a coronial inquiry into the death of an Aboriginal elder in the back of a transport van. A legislative package to be announced by Attorney-General Christian Porter this morning will strengthen the powers of the Inspector of Custodial Services in line with recommendations of State Coroner Alastair Hope. The laws will include giving him the power to issue "show cause" notices which require a response from the department of Corrective Services. Mr Hope delivered a damning report in June which found the Department of Corrective Services, prisoner transport company G4S, formerly known as Global Solutions Limited, and the two guards who drove the van had all contributed to Mr Ward’s death. Mr Porter said the Government would not support the Opposition’s proposed legislation on the recommendations, which is scheduled to be debated in State Parliament this afternoon. He said the Labor Bill was flawed and the Government’s legislative package would go further than the Coroner’s recommendations, giving Inspector Neil Morgan the power to carry out individual audits the treatment of up to about 40 prisoners each year. Mr Porter said he would be seeking Cabinet approval for more money to provide extra staff to conduct the audits. Today’s debate on the powers of the inspector coincides with a "day of action" organised by the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, which is calling on the Government to respond to the Coroner’s report on Mr Ward’s death.

July 2, 2009 WA Today
The Director of Public Prosecutions has begun his inquiries into the death of an Aboriginal elder in the back of a prison van, giving his family and supporters hope that charges could be laid. The victim was 46-year-old Warburton man Mr Ward, who was effectively roasted in the van during a four-hour journey between Laverton and Kalgoorlie in January last year. A coronial inquest found Mr Ward's death was "wholly avoidable", and State Coroner Alistair Hope recommended charges should be laid over the incident. The inquest was told that Mr Ward - whose first name cannot be published because of cultural reasons - had endured temperatures in excess of 50 degrees in the pod of the van. Mr Hope found "inhumane treatment'' led to the elder's death and said the company involved, Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), its two guards Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell, and the Department of Corrective Services had all contributed to Mr Ward's "terrible death''. Today, DPP Robert Cock QC met with two detective sergeants from the Major Crime Squad about the "horrendous" incident and said he had asked them to conduct further inquiries into the man's death. Mr Cock has also been in touch with the Coroner's Court and asked for further information. His spokeswoman said once he gathered all the information, he would then be in a position to decide if charges should be laid. "I don't know how long the garnering of all the information I require will take," Mr Cock said. "But as soon as I have it all, I will make a decision about charges."

June 23, 2009 The West
The West Australian government is reviewing the contract of a security company involved in the death in custody of an Aboriginal elder, Premier Colin Barnett says. Global Solutions, which was acquired by UK-based security services giant G4S last year, provided security for government groups including the Department of Immigration and the WA Department of Corrective Services. GSL employed two guards to transport the elder, 46-year-old Mr Ward, who died in the back of a prison van on a four-hour journey across the WA goldfields in January 2008. Mr Ward, whose first name cannot be released for cultural reasons, was being taken from Laverton to Kalgoorlie to face a drink-driving charge. He died of heat stroke after suffering temperatures of 50C in the rear pod of a van driven by the guards, Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell. Earlier this month, WA coroner Alistair Hope apportioned blame for the “wholly avoidable” death among the guards, GSL and the WA Department of Corrective Services. The Director of Public Prosecutions is considering whether charges should be laid over the matter. Mr Barnett said today that G4S would be scrutinised before their government contract was renewed. “It is an absolute tragedy that a prisoner in the care of the state could end up dying in that condition,” Mr Barnett said. “The coroner’s reported, the attorney-general is dealing with that issue, and we will certainly look at the contract and the performance, and ensure that it is never repeated in Western Australia again.” The transport tender for corrective services is due to come up next year. Mr Barnett said G4S would be judged on their performance. “I’m not involved directly in the administration of that contract, but I assure you we will leave no stone unturned to ensure that future prisoners are treated with respect and safely,“ he said. “It would be quite inappropriate for me to comment on a tender process, but obviously their performance will be one of the factors that will be taken into account when that future tender is awarded.”

June 23, 2009 Brisbane Times
A sacked security guard has offered her apologies to the family of an Aboriginal elder who died in custody, while the West Australian government says it's reviewing her former employer's contract. Nina Stokoe, one of two guards who had charge of the man when he died of heatstroke in the back of a secure van during a 360km drive, accused authorities of providing inadequate vehicles to transport prisoners. Security giant G4S last week sacked Ms Stokoe and the other guard, Graham Powell, claiming the pair failed to follow directions to check on prisoners every two hours during the fatal four-hour journey. Mr Ward, whose first name cannot be released for cultural reasons, died after suffering temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius in the rear of the privately operated van which had no air-conditioning. He was being taken from Laverton to Kalgoorlie on January 27 last year to face charges of drink-driving. WA coroner Alastair Hope, who in his findings said Mr Ward had suffered "inhumane treatment", has asked the director of public prosecutions to consider laying charges over the incident. Mr Hope found that Ms Stokoe, Mr Powell, Global Solutions Ltd (since acquired by G4S) and the Department of Corrective Services had all contributed to Mr Ward's "terrible death". Ms Stokoe on Tuesday broke her silence in an interview with the Nine Network, saying she is distraught over Mr Ward's death. In excerpts aired on Fairfax Radio on Tuesday, Ms Stokoe broke down while offering an apology to Mr Ward's family. "I am very sorry that it's happened and I can understand how they feel," she said. "I only wish that it never happened and that he was still around. "I am so sorry that it happened. "Mr Ward will always be on my mind, always, he will never go away." Mr Stokoe said guards endured terrible conditions in the vans supplied by authorities but were afraid of complaining lest they lose their shifts. She accepted her part in Mr Ward's death but said the prison vans were "untrustworthy". "(We've) probably been scapegoats, but at the end of the day we were the ones that were driving the vehicle," she said. "We had no choice what vehicle to drive. "At the end of the day, every day in Kalgoorlie when we drove out to pick up prisoners it's pot luck. "There's many times we have been sat by the side of the road broken down. "Sometimes 15, 20-odd hours those vehicles have been stuck out in the middle of nowhere, broken down, with prisoners on board and without prisoners on board. "Those vehicles were untrustworthy." WA Premier Colin Barnett said the government was reviewing G4S' contract. "It is an absolute tragedy that a prisoner in the care of the state could end up dying in that condition," Mr Barnett said on Tuesday. "The coroner's reported, the attorney-general is dealing with that issue, and we will certainly look at the contract and the performance, and ensure that it is never repeated in Western Australia again." The transport tender for corrective services is due to come up next year.

June 19, 2009 Brisbane Times
Two security guards who had charge of a prison van in which an Aboriginal elder died of heat stroke have been sacked, their employer says. UK-based security services giant G4S said on Friday it had terminated the employment of the two guards, Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell, following the completion of a coroner's hearing into the man's death. West Australian Coroner Alastair Hope last Friday delivered a finding that the man, known only as Mr Ward for cultural reasons, had died of heat stroke. He said he had suffered through temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius in the un-airconditioned pod of a van during a 360km journey between Laverton and Kalgoorlie on January 27 last year. Mr Hope apportioned blame for Mr Ward's death between Ms Stokoe and Mr Powell, the private company Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), which has since been acquired by G4S, and the WA Department of Corrective Services. G4S Public affairs director Tim Hall said Ms Stokoe and Mr Powell had disregarded orders to check on prisoners at least once every two hours. But he said their dismissal was a result of the Department of Corrective Services withdrawing their work permits on Monday. "The withdrawal of their work permits effectively made any other considerations unnecessary," Mr Hall told AAP on Friday. Mr Hope has asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider whether charges should be laid over the incident.

June 15, 2009 Four Corners
The company linked to the death of Mr Ward was the subject of a damning report in 2005. An investigation by the ABC's Four Corners program found GSL (now G4S) was the subject of a damning report, published in 2005, by Queensland officials regarding the transportation of immigration detainees in 2004. In that incident, none of the detainees was given food during a seven-hour leg of a lengthy trip from Melbourne to South Australia, and only two were given water. The man who wrote the report, the former head of Queensland's corrective services, Keith Hamburger, says he is concerned about the issues raised by the subsequent death of Mr Ward in Western Australia. The Human Rights Commission later found that one of the detainees was so thirsty that he was forced to drink his own urine. Last week the state's coroner found Mr Ward had died of heat stroke after being carted through the desert in 40 degree-plus heat in a prisoner transport van that had faulty air conditioning. The Aboriginal elder, who had been arrested for drink driving, was found with a third-degree burn on his stomach where his body had come into contact with the van's floor. The coroner found the private security guards who drove the van, the company which employed them, GSL, and the WA Department of Corrective Services all contributed to his death. "The criticism of the company related to our procedures and processes," GSL spokesman Tim Hall has told ABC radio. "We accept that there was some ground for criticism." However it is not the first time GSL's procedures have been criticised. Mr Hamburger's findings were equally damning. He found GSL was "responsible for placing the safety of detainees at risk", "humiliating" them, and "disregarding appeals for assistance from detainees in obvious distress". The guards had driven the first leg of the journey to South Australia non-stop for seven hours. None of the detainees was given food, and only two were given water. "I felt quite appalled actually," Mr Hamburger told Four Corners. "I sat in the van. I talked to the staff that did the escort. I saw the CCTV footage. I was very shocked by the whole thing." One of the asylum seekers, now settled in Australia, describes for the first time the journey he endured. "People was in the back shouting and crying and I was banging as well because I needed to go to the toilet," he said. "And they didn't stop for anything. And I have to do it in the car." 'Great concern' -- One year after the Hamburger report was released, the WA government gave the contract for prisoner transport in the state to GSL. "If these issues are being repeated that's a matter of great concern, because this is not rocket science," Mr Hamburger said. "We're dealing here with, as I've said, duty of care. "We've had many years of experience across the board in corrections and detention and police in dealing with these situations. "There's a whole body of evidence around I guess on how to do these things, and so it is concerning. "They should know better."

June 13, 2009 Perth Now
ONE of two guards suspended over the death of an Aboriginal elder in a prisoner transport van, says she has been ''gagged'' from talking about the tragedy. On Friday, State Coroner Alastair Hope recommended Director of Public Prosecutions Robert Cock consider criminal charges over the "unnecessary and wholly avoidable death'' of Mr Ward, 46, who died on January 27 last year. Officers Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell drove the Warbuton elder, whose first name cannot be released for cultural reasons, for the 352km Outback journey between the Goldfields towns of Laverton to Kalgoorlie. In his stinging finding, Mr Hope said Mr Ward died when temperatures rose to 50C in the pod of the commercially owned van which had no air-conditioning and little-to-no air flow. Contracted transport company, G4S, formally known as Global Solutions Ltd, stood down Ms Stokoe and Mr Powell on Friday. "The two employees have been suspended and the findings of the coroner, the coroner's report and recommendations will be considered carefully and it will then be decided what the next step should be,'' G4S spokesman Tim Hall told ABC radio yesterday. Ms Stokoe declined to comment on her suspension, saying: "I can't talk about anything, I would like to, but I can't''. Mr Ward's family is planning to sue G4S, which runs other custodial services including court security, over the tragedy. Prison Officer's Union secretary John Welch said the inquest had raised questions about the privatisation of custodial services in WA. Mr Welch said he feared G4S would be allowed to be apply for the contract to run the recently announced Eastern Goldfields prison which was scheduled for completion by the end of 2013. "You wonder why, in the light apparent failures of privatisation, you would want to even consider looking at having at private provider in the Goldfields,'' Mr Welch said. A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Christian Porter said no decision had been made on whether the prison would be public or private, and any discussion on the potential awarding of a private contract was speculative. Deaths in Custody Watch Committee chair Marc Newhouse said another public protest was planned for the city on Saturday to lobby the State Government for improvements.

June 12, 2009 WA Today
A man died a "terrible death" in the back of a prison van where temperatures reached 50 degrees celsius, the West Australian coroner has found. Coroner Alistair Hope, in his findings handed down on Friday, said the 46-year-old Aboriginal man's death had been "wholly unnecessary and avoidable". Mr Ward, whose first name cannot be released for cultural reasons, died while being transferred 350km from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in a transit van on January 27, after being picked up for drink-driving on Australia Day. The air-conditioning unit inside the prisoner's compartment of the commercially operated van was not working and the coroner was told Mr Ward would have suffered through temperatures of 50 degrees before his death. He received third-degree burns where his body came into contact with the metal floor in the back of the Global Solutions Ltd (GSL) vehicle. Mr Hope found Mr Ward, of the Goldfields town of Warburton, died of heat stroke. He said his death was the result of a "litany of errors" and accused the prison van drivers of collusion and giving false evidence. He said the fact the prison van did not have a spare tyre was an indication of GSL's "reckless approach". It was a disgrace that a prisoner yet to be convicted was transported such a distance in the oven-hot conditions, Mr Hope said. The prisoner's compartment had little light, no restraints to protect the person inside if the van was involved in an accident, had little air flow and the fan did not work when tested, Mr Hope added. There was no proper method for a prisoner to communicate with the drivers, he said. About 40 protesters demonstrated outside Perth's Central Law Courts, where the coroner delivered his findings. Amnesty International called it "a disgrace that a prisoner should be transported in this way in the 21st century".

May 16, 2009 The West
He literally cooked to death. Trapped in a prison van for four hours, suffocated by temperatures that climbed to more than 50C, the Aboriginal elder had no way to communicate with security officers sitting just a metre away, in the airconditioned cab. His only sustenance was a small bottle of water and a meat pie. When he finally collapsed on the van floor, the metal was so hot it seared his skin. Yesterday, Corrective Services Commissioner Ian Johnson travelled to Kalgoorlie to publicly apologise to Mr Ward’s family, accepting responsibility for the 46-year-old’s death in January last year. It was a dramatic end to a coronial inquest that has revealed a litany of failures in the justice and custodial systems in WA’s outback. Widow Nancy Ward and her children will return to Laverton next week after sitting quietly and with dignity throughout the case, which has attracted the attention of the United Nations and the Australian Human Rights Commission. Mr Ward, a conservation worker, a supporter and interpreter for local police and an advocate and educator for children of the Gibson Desert, was an international ambassador for the Ngaanyatjarra people. His family say he was treated like an animal. Mr Ward had been drinking on Australia Day last year in the remote Goldfields town of Laverton when he was arrested for driving with more than four times the legal alcohol limit. Conducting a quasi-court hearing for Mr Ward at his cell door at the local police station, justice of the peace Barrye Thompson remanded him in custody to face court in Kalgoorlie the following day. Mr Thompson told the inquest he had no formal training when appointed as a JP and could not even remember whether he had read the Bail Act. The Aboriginal Legal Service was not contacted. Guards and police officers testified the prison vans used by Global Solutions Limited and maintained by the State were notoriously unreliable, sub-standard and the air-conditioning was often faulty. GSL’s supervisor in Kalgoorlie, Leanne Jenkins, had warned her management an incident would occur unless the vehicles were replaced. At 11.20am, the GSL prison van pulled into a secure area at Laverton police station where the guards were told they would have a trouble-free passenger. Mr Ward made a comment about the warm day and a guard told him “the quicker he got into the van, the quicker the air-conditioning would kick in”. But the air-conditioning did not work: it had been reported faulty in the GSL maintenance log more than a month earlier. Before making the continuous 360km journey to Kalgoorlie, the guards did not tell Mr Ward there was a duress alarm in the back of the van in case he needed help. Towards the end of the trip, they heard a loud thump. Pulling over on to the side of the road and opening the outer door of the van, the guards felt the heat radiating from the rear pod and they saw Mr Ward face-down on the van floor — unconscious and unresponsive. Reaching into the back of the van felt like a “blast from a furnace”, according to Dr Lucien LaGrange, who assisted in removing Mr Ward’s lifeless body at Kalgoorlie Hospital. Doctors found full-thickness contact burns on his stomach and tried for 20 minutes to resuscitate Mr Ward, whose skin felt like a “hot cup of coffee”. They managed to get a brief return of a heartbeat, but after putting him in an ice bath, his body temperature was still 41.7C. Coroner Alastair Hope is due to deliver his findings on June 12. For now, the Ward family will have to return to a community missing a leader. It is little comfort to them that money was allocated in this week’s State Budget to replace the fleet of transport vans — four years after the Department for Corrective Services undertook to do so. “I am sorry,” Mr Johnson told Mrs Ward yesterday. “I have a deep regret but no matter what I say, it’s not going to change what happened.”

May 14, 2009 The West
More than 30 family members and supporters of Mr Ward, an Aboriginal elder who had a fatal heatstroke in the back of a prison van, gathered outside the Kalgoorlie Courthouse yesterday to call for those responsible for his death to face tribal punishment. Mr Ward’s widow Nancy and his four sons were among those who wailed in grief as they demanded justice and answers to why the Warburton elder died in such horrific circumstances. The family’s interpreter and relative, Gail Jamieson, said that under traditional law, anyone found culpable of the death should be speared. “The family is just devastated,” she said. “He was treated with no respect and he was a well-respected, outstanding elder. If they were in an Aboriginal culture, they would be speared because us Aboriginal people are also going through two cultures.” The inquest was told no disciplinary action was taken against the two GSL officers responsible for transporting Mr Ward on the day he died. Mr Ward died after a four-hour journey in a GSL prison van from Laverton to Kalgoorlie on January 27 last year when temperatures reached 42C. Global Solutions Limited general manager John Hughes said security officers Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell were stood down on full pay and were reinstated when an internal investigation found they had not violated company policies or procedures. Questioned by the family’s barrister Michael Rynne, Mr Hughes said any reinvestigation would depend on Coroner Alastair Hope’s findings. GSL’s multi-million-dollar contract could require it to pay a penalty of 4.5 per cent of its value if found to have failed in its duty of care. Mr Hughes said he understood GSL’s obligations included ensuring officers minimised hardship to detainees, conducting regular checks to ensure their safety, security and health and preventing injury. The inquest concludes today.

March 21, 2009 The West
The security guard who drove the van in which an Aboriginal elder died of heat stroke has admitted he should take responsibility for the death. Testifying for a second day at the inquest into the death of 46-year-old Mr Ward, Global Solutions Limited driver Graham Powell said yesterday he regretted how Mr Ward died. “In hindsight, if I had to do that journey again, I would certainly be doing it a lot differently,” he said. He agreed with lawyer assisting the coroner, Felicity Zempilas, it was inhumane to transport prisoners in the rear pod of the van over long distances and that the vans were “certainly not designed for that”. Coroner Alastair Hope told Mr Powell he was “troubled” over his evidence about phone calls made after Mr Ward collapsed. Mr Hope said a delay of two minutes between calls was a long time in an emergency. To questions from his counsel Linda Black, Mr Powell said he should have checked the airconditioning, made comfort stops and told Mr Ward explicitly how to communicate with the officers if he was in distress. The inquest has heard Mr Powell and colleague Nina Stokoe did not stop during the four hours they had Mr Ward in the van in mid-40C heat while driving from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in January last year. Mr Ward suffered a full-thickness hand-size burn on his stomach from a hot metal surface inside the van. Senior chemist David Tranthim-Fryer said the prison van temperature would have been above 50C. Evidence from a police re-enactment he helped with revealed the van floor reached 56C and the air temperature at least 50C on a slightly cooler day. The temperature would have been hotter with a person inside because there would have been another heat source. “We opened the back doors and could feel the heat coming out of the pods. The hot air affects you more than anything else,” Mr Tranthim-Fryer said. Mr Ward’s body temperature was 41.7C after 20 minutes of resuscitation in an ice bath while being fanned. The van’s rear-pod airconditioning was not working, a fault noted in the GSL maintenance log more than a month before Mr Ward’s death. Mr Powell said he did not check the airconditioning in the pod despite knowing it had a history of faults. He had assumed Ms Stokoe checked it. Mr Hope has heard evidence from witnesses, including GSL’s Kalgoorlie supervisor Leanne Jenkins, who spoke of substandard “unreliable” prison vans which were not suitable for long distance travel. The inquest did not finish within the two-week timeframe and Mr Hope adjourned it until May 11. Outside, Mr Ward’s cousin Bernard Newberry said his family wanted those responsible charged. The family has asked that Mr Ward’s first name not be used.

March 20, 2009 The West Australian
The guard responsible for transporting an Aboriginal elder who died in custody was previously demoted for breaching procedures and compromising prisoner safety. Giving evidence at a coronial inquest into the death of 46-yearold Mr Ward, Global Solutions Limited security officer Graham Powell said he had been stood down as a supervisor because he breached the company’s policies and procedures. The inquest in Kalgoorlie was told Mr Powell was stood down from GSL for six months in January 2007 because he compromised prisoner security when he failed to ensure prisoners were loaded into a prison van in a secure area. He also breached procedure by smoking in prison vans and allowing staff and prisoners to smoke in cells. Mr Ward’s relatives travelled from around the State to attend the inquest yesterday. Mr Ward’s widow Nancy cried when Mr Powell told how he and fellow security officer Nina Stokoe heard a “loud thud” when Mr Ward collapsed in the back of a prison van. Mr Ward died of heatstroke after collapsing in the back of the GSL prison van during a fourhour, non-stop journey from Laverton to Kalgoorlie-Boulder on January 27 last year. Mr Powell said when he arrived at the hospital he checked the airconditioning in the rear pod of the prison van. “I put my arm inside the prisoner compartment and it appeared to me there was no air coming out the vents,” he told State Coroner Alastair Hope. Mr Powell said he had not checked the prison van’s air-conditioning before leaving for Laverton because it had not been included on a vehicle inspection check sheet. He agreed with Mr Hope that it was highly dangerous not to check the air-conditioning before transporting prisoners.

March 18, 2009 Perth Now
TWO guards responsible for transporting an Aboriginal elder 352km across the West Australian outback joked about how he must have been "freezing his balls off" hours before he died of heatstroke in the back of a corrective services van, an inquest has been told. Giving evidence via video link yesterday, Global Solutions Ltd officer Nina Stokoe said she did not check that the air-conditioning in the back of the corrective services van in which the prisoner died was working - even though it had been faulty and the outside temperature had soared to 42C - because it was not part of procedure. Ms Stokoe said she assumed the air-conditioning was working in the rear because there was no problem with the air-conditioning in the front cab and Ward, whose family does not want his last name published for cultural reasons, would have banged on the side of the van if there was a problem. According to Ms Stokoe, during previous trips, other prisoners often complained that the air-conditioning was too cold, and she and fellow officer Graham Powell joked that, while they were too hot, Ward would be the opposite. "I had a joke with Graham," she told the inquest into Ward's death. "(I said) I bet he's freezing his balls off while we're sitting here stinking hot." Coroner Alastair Hope asked whether it would have been prudent to check the air-conditioning on such a hot day when it had been known to break down and Ward was in a section of the van with only metal seats. "It (the air-conditioning) wasn't on the check list ... I wouldn't know how to check it," Ms Stokoe replied. Ward died on January 27 last year after attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. He was being transferred from Laverton to prison in Kalgoorlie after being arrested for drink driving on Australia Day. Mr Hope was yesterday also told how the Kalgoorlie-based supervisor for GSL, Leanne Jenkins, warned her superiors just four months before Ward's death that someone would "eventually die" if the company's outdated and poorly maintained vans were not replaced. Ms Jenkins said the only response she received was that any vehicles in need of repairs should not be driven. She said the two vans based at Kalgoorlie always had problems and were not suitable for long trips. Ms Stokoe and Mr Powell made no stops on the 3 1/2-hour journey until they heard a thud in the back of the van when they were just outside Kalgoorlie. When they pulled over to check on Ward, Ms Stokoe said, they did not open the van's back doors completely because it was not procedure and Ward might have been trying to escape. "If he was mucking around and it was an escape attempt, we would look like idiots," she said. After realising he only had a faint pulse, the officers rushed Ward to hospital. The inquest continues today.

March 17, 2009 Perth Now
AN Aboriginal elder who died in the back of a prison van arrived at hospital, unconscious and with third-degree burns, an inquest has heard. Lucien LaGrange, who was working in the emergency department of Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital when Ward arrived in the non-airconditioned van, said a blast of hot air hit him when he opened the back of the vehicle. Respected elder Ward - whose family does not want his first name mentioned for cultural reasons - did not appear to be breathing. "It was like a blast from a furnace - it was extremely hot," Dr LaGrange told Coroner Alastair Hope. "I was struck by how wet and slippery he was. It was almost like he had been coated in soap - he just slid." Dr LaGrange said that despite medical staff placing ice over Ward's body, his body temperature was 41.7C. That day, January 27 last year, the outside temperature climbed to 42C. After many resuscitation attempts, Ward was declared dead about 90 minutes after arriving at the hospital. Ward was being transported 352km from Laverton to Goldfields Regional Prison in Kalgoorlie after being charged with drink-driving on Australia Day. The inquest was told that the company responsible for transporting Ward, Global Solutions Ltd, raised concerns with the West Australian Government about the poor state of its vans before Ward's death, but was told no new vehicles were available. Under a multi-million-dollar contract, GSL is responsible for transporting prisoners, while the Department of Corrective Services is responsible for maintaining the fleet of vehicles. Former GSL employee Thomas Akatsa told the hearing that after the company failed to secure new vans from the Government, he raised concerns with the company's supervisors, including airconditioning faults and overheating, but was told not to talk about it. Mr Akatsa said the vans used to transport prisoners were sub-standard, did not contain toilets and were not suitable for travelling long distances. Despite regular problems with airconditioning in the back of the vans, Mr Akatsa said there was no requirement for staff to check the airconditioning was working. He said that while he always did check, not all officers did, including one of the officers who transported Ward on that day, Graham Powell. The inquest heard that Mr Powell, who is to give evidence today, had been demoted from a supervisor to a driver before the death. One of his colleagues at the time, Lynette Corcoran-Sugars, testified that she requested not to work with Mr Powell, accusing him of breaching procedures and inappropriately using constraints on prisoners. Ms Corcoran-Sugars and Mr Akatsa said that when they transported prisoners from Laverton to Kalgoorlie, they made at least one stop and offered prisoners water, food and a toilet break. The inquest has heard that no stops were made during Ward's journey and that he was given only a 600ml bottle of water and a pie before leaving Laverton. Questions were raised about whether Ward should even have been in custody, with barrister Lachlan Carter for the Aboriginal Legal Service claiming a proper bail hearing, as defined by the act, did not take place. The inquest heard that GSL's motto was "safety first". Mr Hope questioned how this could be the case when the company allowed staff to transport prisoners in vehicles that did not have a usable spare tyre. The inquest continues today.

March 12, 2009 ABC
A coronial inquest into the death in custody of an Aboriginal elder from the Central Desert will resume today in Kalgoorlie, in south-eastern Western Australia . Mr Ward died in Kalgoorlie hospital in January last year after being transferred in the back of a prison van from Laverton. Temperatures on the day were mid-40 degrees Celsius and the journey lasted for four hours. In Warburton earlier this week, the inquest heard the airconditioning in the back of the van was not working and that Mr Ward died of heatstroke. Mr Ward's family testified he was a hard working and respected elder. The inquiry will today hear from police officers who arrested Mr Ward for drink driving and officers from the private transport company Global Solutions Limited which transported him to Kalgoorlie.

March 13, 2008 The Age
A NIGERIAN man who twice resorted to drinking his urine during a nightmarish seven-hour transfer to Baxter detention centre without food or water will be given $20,000 compensation. Four others who endured the trip in the back of the van with him will also be compensated after the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found they had been subjected to "degrading treatment". The five detainees, whose plight was revealed in The Age, were taken from Maribyrnong in Melbourne to Baxter on September 17, 2004 by guards from GSL, the company that runs Australia's detention centres. A report by commission president John von Doussa found the van did not stop for any breaks in the seven hours from Melbourne to Mildura, breaching the detainees' human rights. The report said the drivers ignored signs that the detainees needed toilet stops, having watched them urinate on closed-circuit camera, and disregarded their banging on the walls. Nigerian man Austin Okoye, 26, suffered the "additional indignity" of twice drinking his urine to relieve his "excessive thirst", the report said. GSL guards were also accused of using excessive force in removing 53-year-old Vietnamese detainee Huong Hai Nguyen from his dormitory at Maribyrnong for the trip. The Immigration Department initially denied Mr Nguyen's allegations. But the department referred the case to the commission after receiving a second complaint from Mr Okoye. In July 2005, Immigration Department secretary Andrew Metcalfe said GSL would be fined $500,000 after the independent report substantiated most of the allegations. Yesterday Mr Metcalfe said GSL would also pay the compensation. "These people were mistreated and they deserve to be compensated," he said. The report said Mr Okoye and Mr Nguyen should get $20,000 each, and the others $15,000. GSL spokesman Tim Hall said the company did not accept the claims about Mr Okoye being forced to drink his urine. But he said GSL endorsed the rest of the report and the Commonwealth would be fully indemnified. The report urged the Government to locate the victims as soon as possible (three of them, including Mr Nguyen and Mr Okoye, have been deported) to provide them with their compensation and a formal apology.

February 22, 2008 The Green Left
A February 22 meeting between Western Australian prisons minister Margaret Quirk, Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Dennis Eggington and WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committee chairperson Marc Newhouse resulted in some ministerial promises of reforms following the the death in custody of an Aboriginal elder on January 27. The elder, from the desert town of Warburton, died after collapsing in the back of a prison van while being transported for four hours in 43oC heat to a jail in the outback city of Kalgoorlie. He had been arrested on January 26 for alleged drink-driving while visiting relatives in the remote town of Laverton, 352 kilometres north of Kalgoorie. The van was driven and staffed by employees of Global Solutions Ltd, an Anglo-French prison management company, which the WA government has contracted to transport prisoners. Professor Richard Harding, the WA government’s inspector of custodial services, told the news media on January 29 that he was not surprised at the Warburton elder’s death, given the state of the prisoner transport fleet. He said that the “government-owned vans are continually breaking down, leaving prisoners stranded in searingly hot conditions in remote areas”. Among other things, Quirk has agreed to overhaul procedures followed when a prisoner is transported. New procedures, to be in place by March 14, will include a health assessment and provision of water and food.

February 4, 2008 News.com.AU
THE contractor that transported an Aboriginal leader who died in custody last weekend has previously been criticised for the treatment of detainees. Government contractor Global Solutions Limited has been accused of the humiliation and sensory deprivation of detainees, who were forced to urinate in their cramped compartments, inadequate provision of food and fluids and the prank strip search of a prisoner. The death of Ian Ward in the sealed compartment of a "bloody hot" van last Sunday as the outside temperature climbed to 43C has prompted an unprecedented attack on the Carpenter Government by the Inspector of Custodial Services, who said the state's chronically deficient prisoner transport system would probably not be tolerated if 95 per cent of prisoners were white, instead of up to 95 per cent of them being Aboriginal. Anger is growing in the desert community of Warburton in WA's Ngaanyatjarra lands over the death of Mr Ward, who collapsed in what may have been an unairconditioned or inadequately airconditioned rear compartment while being transported 352km by GSL. The van transporting Mr Ward left the town of Laverton about midday for Eastern Goldfields Regional Prison to be remanded in custody on a drink-driving charge when he vomited on himself and fell unconscious. His body was wheeled into Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital at 4.30pm on Sunday after the two GSL guards in the van found he had collapsed in the back. Witness Jodie Aurisch said a female GSL guard told an emergency department doctor: "It is bloody hot in the back of the van". GSL and its $70 million prison transport contract with the Carpenter Government are likely to be examined as part of a coronial inquest into Mr Ward's death in custody. It will not be the first time the company faces scrutiny. In 2005, GSL was fined almost $500,000 over mistreatment of immigration detainees. In 2006, GSL was fined a reported $200,000 after guards at Port Phillip Prison in Victoria jokingly strip searched a prisoner as part of a prank called "Sausagegate". A federal government report into GSL's transfer of five detainees from Maribyrnong Detention Centre in Melbourne to Baxter Immigration Facility in South Australia over two days in 2004 found the officers involved had not been adequately trained and treated the detainees inhumanely. In his report into the incident for the Howard government, investigator Keith Hamburger found the van used was unsafe and inhumane and that the detainees had been denied access to toilet facilities, forcing them to urinate in their compartments. The officers were also found to have ignored appeals for assistance from detainees in distress. Melbourne legal advocate Chandarev Singh said GSL had shown "a pattern of lethal indifference". GSL's director of public affairs, Tim Hall, said Mr Singh's "inaccurate and unpleasant personal views" did not warrant comment.

February 1, 2008 The Western Australian
Police yesterday refused to reveal the results of a post-mortem examination on the body of an Aboriginal elder who died after he collapsed in custody while being taken to Kalgoorlie in the back of a van. It is understood police received the results yesterday. Warburton Aboriginal elder Ian Ward collapsed in the back of a Global Solutions Limited van on Sunday after a four-hour trip from Laverton to Kalgoorlie and died a short time later at Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital. The 46-year-old, who was being transferred to face a charge of drinkdriving, was found unconscious in the back of the van in the middle of the afternoon when temperatures outside exceeded 40 degrees. It is understood the van’s air-conditioning broke down the previous week and had to be replaced. The van is part of a fleet owned by the State Government but managed by the private prison management company. The State Government’s controversial deal with Global Solutions Limited, the group responsible for prisoner transport, could be tested, depending on the outcome of the investigation into Mr Ward’s death. Opposition Leader Troy Buswell said the death in custody raised serious concerns over the State Government’s “gifting” of the contract to GSL. GSL was controversially awarded the $70 million prisoner transport, court custody and security services contract last year when the company bought out the previous contractor Australian Integrated Management Service. Letters obtained under Freedom of Information laws revealed the Inspector for Custodial Services, Richard Harding, told Corrective Services Minister Margaret Quirk in April that the plan for GSL to take over the contract was unwise and risky. Despite his advice, Cabinet not only approved the takeover of the AIMS contract by GSL last July, but days later it extended the deal by three years without any public tender process. “Depending on the outcome of the investigation by police and the coroner, the State Government needs to be examining every aspect of the contract and take action against GSL if and when it is appropriate,” Mr Buswell said. Ms Quirk said issues surrounding Mr Ward’s death, including the contract with GSL, was a matter for the police investigation and the coronial inquest and it was not appropriate to speculate.

January 31, 2008 News.Com.AU
PRISONER transport contractors for the WA government were warned about the "parlous state" of their fleet well before an Aboriginal elder died in a prison van. Ian Ward, 46, of Warburton in the Goldfields, died during a Global Solutions Ltd transfer from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in hot conditions on January 27. It is unclear if the airconditioning was off, or faulty. Drivers of the van took Mr Ward, who had been picked up for drink driving on Australia Day, to Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital after they found him collapsed. He died a short time later. WA Custodial Services Inspector Richard Harding wrote to GSL last year outlining six concerns, including 'GSL's capacity to cope with the logistical challenge of running a transport service across such huge distances as are involved with Western Australia''. "The parlous state'' of the government-owned fleet upon which GSL would have to rely was among Mr Harding's concerns. GSL is contracted by the WA government to provide prisoner transport services and by the federal government to run immigration detention camps and transport immigration detainees and prisoners. Project SafeCom spokesman Jack Smit said there had been other transportation issues under the watch of GSL, formerly US-owned but bought last month by European security consortium Group 4 Securitas. "This is an ongoing issue partly because it's an out-of-Australia company ... you no longer have people employed who are directly responsible, by contract, to the minister,'' Mr Smit said. A 2005 federal government inquiry found GSL failed to provide medical assessments and treatments for injured detainees who were being transferred to the Baxter detention centre in South Australia from Maribyrnong in 2004. The probe found the van used to transport detainees was "unsafe and inhumane'' with airconditioning design faults. The five were sent an apology and compensated by the immigration department. WA major crime squad detectives are investigating the latest death amid calls from human rights groups for an independent investigation. WA Deaths in Custody watch committee spokesman Marc Newhouse said Mr Ward's death should not have happened. "Clearly the government has already been warned about the state of that fleet, which is government-owned,'' Mr Newhouse said.

January 29, 2008 News.Com.AU
THE West Australian desert town of Warburton was in mourning yesterday over the death in custody of its former Aboriginal community chairman, who was arrested on Australia Day for allegedly drink-driving. Ian Ward, a 46-year-old father of five and one of the last nomads born in the Gibson Desert, died the following day after collapsing in the back of a security van during a 915km journey to jail in the goldfields city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Major Crime Squad detectives are investigating. Mr Ward was being driven by contractors for the Department of Corrective Services, who noticed he had collapsed as they neared their destination. Mr Ward's nephew Andrew Johns said his large family was gathering in Warburton to remember a man who lobbied for his people's native title rights. "We are very sad today," Mr Johns said. The family understands Mr Ward died of a heart attack in hot conditions in the back of the van. "It is a long way to go and very hot," he said. Police had stopped Mr Ward last Saturday at 9.30pm in his remote home town of Warburton, about 1500km northwest of Perth in the traditional Ngaanyatjarra lands between the Gibson and Victoria deserts. He was charged with one count of drink-driving and taken to the lockup in Warburton. Mr Ward was driven 570km to the courthouse in Laverton, where he appeared on Sunday morning and was remanded in custody. Police say he was being transported to the nearest jail - the Eastern Goldfields Regional Prison 352km away - when he collapsed. Mr Ward was being transported by Global Solutions Ltd, having been picked up in Laverton at 11.40am, police say. He was being taken in the rear of the GSL security van. As the van neared Kalgoorlie, he was found to have collapsed. He was conveyed to Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital, where he died a short time later.

March 16, 2006 The Age
WHEN Devandar Naidu was at work his boss would kick his chair from beneath him. The security guard was subjected over four years to names such as "coconut head" and "monkey face". He would start work at 7am and not be allowed to go home until 10pm. He had to ask his boss's permission to go to the toilet. Yesterday, the NSW Supreme Court awarded the former guard $1.9 million in compensation for the relentless bullying that left him incapable of working again. Outside the court, Mr Naidu's lawyer, Shaun McCarthy, described the award as a "rare victory for the little man against a giant … conglomerate". "He had a nervous breakdown, he will never work again," Mr McCarthy said. The abuse of Mr Naidu at the hands of News Ltd's security and fire manager, Lance Chaloner, was described as "extraordinary" by Justice Michael Adams. The abuse started in 1992, when Mr Chaloner threw tantrums, would kick chairs from under Mr Naidu, and call him names such as "black c---". Although his hours were 7am to 4pm, Mr Chaloner made him work unpaid until after 10pm. When Mr Naidu went on a rare holiday to Fiji with his family, Mr Chaloner insisted that he telephone work every day, which involved a 15-kilometre trip to a phone, and he had to pay for the calls. When he returned, he was told to do manual work at Mr Chaloner's home, and threatened with the sack if he didn't. Mr Chaloner was dismissed by News Ltd in January 1997. The judge said that although Mr Naidu remained at work until mid-1997, he could not operate effectively. He had major depression and post traumatic stress disorder. News Ltd will share the damages with Group 4 Securitas Pty Ltd, the bulk to be paid by Group 4, which employed Mr Naidu.

Junee Jail
Junee, New South Wales
GEO Group (formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections)
June 15, 2011 ABC
It is uncertain whether the sacking of five guards at the Junee Jail will result in changes to inmate monitoring policies. The officers were dismissed yesterday for using surveillance cameras to watch a female inmate undress to shower. The guards were stood down after the incident in late May and faced a three hour disciplinary hearing last week. The GEO Group which run the Junee Jail will not comment on whether the incident has resulted in changes to staff protocols. Only four women prisoners can be housed at the Junee Correctional Centre which has a small remand unit. A spokesman for GEO says the Department of Corrective Services will be notified of the dismissals.

June 1, 2011 Daily Advertiser
NSW Corrective Services last night announced it will launch a full review of Junee Correctional Centre's (JCC) housing of female inmates. The move comes after private prison operator GEO Group stood down five JCC staff over allegations they spied on a female inmate as she undressed. "The commissioner has ordered a review of protocol surrounding management of women at Junee Correctional Centre," a NSW Corrective Services spokeswoman said. A senior female officer will travel to Junee in the coming days to conduct the review. JCC has long had facilities to hold up to four female inmates, who are kept in a separate section attached to the medical centre. A source close to JCC said only women in remand or awaiting court appearances were kept on site. "They're normally in transit somewhere," he said. He asserted it was unlikely NSW Corrective Services would attempt to stop the practice as department officials "are the ones that asked us to house them there". Prisoner rights group Justice Action has launched a broadside attack on GEO Group over its private operation of the centre. Justice Action spokesman Brett Collins, a former inmate himself, yesterday said the internal investigation by the company would be unlikely to result in justice for the inmate. "(The inmate) has rights; there are civil rights ... but what's the proof going to be?" Mr Collins said. "Do you think the guards are going to give evidence? I don't think so." He said when private operators are able to hold scrutinising authorities "at arm's length" it put operational transparency in doubt. However, a spokesman for GEO Group said the recent incident "wasn't a strong argument against private prisons". "This could happen at a private or public prison," he said. It is expected the findings of GEO Group's investigation will be released later this week.

April 19, 2011 Daily Advertiser
THE company that manages Junee jail has denied claims that an assault on a wheelchair-bound inmate was covered up after a complaint was filed with the NSW Minister for Justice, Greg Smith, and the Ombudsman. The Daily Advertiser was last week sent an explosive account of an alleged assault on an inmate who, as a wheelchair-bound amputee, is unable to defend himself. The allegations, which are being made by the inmate's wife, are extremely detailed, and include claims the inmate who attacked her husband has "some influence over certain officers in the unit", which is why, she claims, a report of the assault, which supposedly took place on February 22, was not filed at the time. The allegations name several officers who work at Junee Jail, claiming that one noted the assault when it happened and another took down a formal complaint from the victim on the day it happened. "(Name blanked out) was assaulted by a fellow inmate," the allegations state. "This was an unprovoked attack, witnessed by several other inmates. "He was punched in the face, resulting in a black eye; there may have been other injuries, but this was the particular injury that was noted by an officer, (name blanked out)." Junee jail is privately owned and managed, and according to the company that manages it, GEO Group, the alleged assault was not reported until five weeks after it allegedly occurred. "GEO immediately conducted an investigation but found no evidence to corroborate the allegation of an assault," a statement released by a GEO spokesman says. "The alleged assault has been reported to the Ombudsman and the Minister's office and GEO is preparing a response."

May 14, 2010 Daily Advertiser
A JUNEE jail inmate who accidentally swallowed condoms containing amphetamine smuggled into the prison thought he was going to die, Wagga Local Court has heard. The revelation came when the prisoner, 27-year-old Ashley Sloan, was sentenced this week after pleading guilty to one count of possessing a prohibited drug. Bob Stapleton from the Department of Corrective Services said the incident had been reported to the department, but investigations into it were a matter for the private company that runs prison, GEO Group. Ken Davis for GEO said the jail had a very strict regime on drug detection enforced by drug detection dogs, urine sampling and other measures, but despite these efforts a small amount of drugs did enter the prison via visitors. He described the incident as isolated and said drug detection statistics at Junee were well below the national benchmark. Sloan was quizzed about how he got the drugs, but stayed mum. If not for Sloan falling ill after swallowing the drugs and making a plea for help the smuggling may have gone undetected. The court heard Sloan told jail officers on November 23 he had been on the prison oval the previous day and had accidentally swallowed amphetamine - known as speed - after concealing it in his mouth. Sloan was taken to Wagga Base Hospital where he was given medication to counteract the amphetamine. There were concerns for Sloan's health when his heart beat became irregular, and he spent some time in the intensive care unit. The prisoner's bowel movements were monitored, eventually resulting in the recovery of a small perforated piece of rubber that appeared to be a condom. According to police, Sloan later said to a jail officer guarding him "Chief, I've got something for you". Police facts tendered to the court said Sloan handed over a condom tied at one end. It contained a substance that tests later revealed was 2.87 grams of speed. Sloan later told police he had swallowed two balloons, but declined to give any other information. It is understood the prisoner has also refused to say a word GEO about how he obtained the drugs, but there are suspicions the speed might have been smuggled in to the prison by a prison visitor the previous day.

March 9, 2009 Sidney Morning Herald
AS A state open to the peddling of political influence from those who have donated to government election coffers, NSW takes some beating. Starting with Sydney's foundation 221 years ago, bending the rules of governance - and worse - to help mates who have helped you has been part of the political culture. Fortunately there is far more transparency now than in the bad old days about who makes financial donations to whom. But three recent cases in Sydney show how the culture still lives in the state Labor Party in a worrying way. The first involves Nick Lalich, the Mayor of Fairfield and state MP for Cabramatta. He presided over a meeting of Fairfield City Council last week that considered a $1 million application from Fred Pisciuneri, a developer. Coincidentally, Mr Pisciuneri had made a $2000 donation to Labor at a fund-raising dinner for Mr Lalich in October, when he won the seat in a byelection. Mr Lalich declared a "non-significant, non-pecuniary conflict of interest" at the council meeting. He now says he "probably" could have been more cautious and abstained from voting. Then there is Virginia Judge, the Minister for Fair Trading, who organised a campaign against a Coles supermarket being built near Strathfield Plaza, a shopping centre in her electorate. She also successfully lobbied her colleague Tony Kelly, the Minister for Police, to have a police station shopfront set up in the plaza. Outwardly, there seems little to question. But then we learn Strathfield Plaza is owned by Memo Corporation, a company that has donated more than $50,000 to Ms Judge's political campaigns over six years. Finally Paul McLeay, the MP for Heathcote, was vice-chairman of a parliamentary committee reviewing a $26 million government contract with GEO Group to run the state's only private prison at Junee. The same company had donated $2000 to Mr McLeay's political campaign. It later gave more than $45,000 to Labor, before the 2007 election. While all three MPs protest their innocence at charges of inappropriate behaviour, the cases nonetheless suggest a distinct trend for a party that seems bereft of fresh initiatives after 14 years in power. Instead of its traditional pursuit of social justice, Labor seems to have succumbed to what the state Opposition rightly calls a "donations-for-decisions culture". Its most brazen, and extreme, manifestation was on display in the scandal that engulfed Wollongong City Council last year. Equally, the Sydney deals show the need for tougher rules against what has become in effect the recycling of political money to do favours for donors.

March 5, 2009 Sidney Morning Herald
THE LABOR MP Paul McLeay is under pressure to stand down as chairman of a parliamentary committee after it emerged that he accepted a donation from the company that runs the state's only private prison. When he accepted the donation from the GEO Group the committee was reviewing the company's $26 million contract. GEO donated $2000 to Mr McLeay's personal campaign on August 28, 2005 when the member for Heathcote was vice-chairman of the Public Accounts Committee that was looking into whether the private Junee prison was providing value for money compared to public jails. A month later a report from the committee concluded that the Government should keep the prison operating. GEO donated more than $45,000 to the Labor Party in the lead-up to the last state election but the donation to Mr McLeay was the only one from the company that went to an individual MP. Mr McLeay, who is now committee chairman and receives an extra $17,440, said he doubted there was any "overlap". "From my recollection the report was well and truly over and I had a fund-raising dinner or luncheon sometime after that, and there were about 12 people there, one of which was GEO," he said yesterday. "Maybe the committee had finished the work and it took a while for the report to be tabled because I wouldn't have accepted a donation if we were still looking at it because that would have not been appropriate." The committee's report concluded that Junee provided good value for money because it was able to house prisoners for $73.59 a day compared to the state-run Kempsey jail which costs $91.75 a day. GEO is the second biggest operator of private prisons in the US. It is favoured to take over Parklea and Cessnock jails when they are privatised. A spokesman for GEO said there was no discussion of the committee's report at Mr McLeay's dinner and the company had understood that the report had been written long before the fund-raiser was held. The Greens MP Sylvia Hale said Mr McLeay should be stood down as committee chairman. "It was completely inappropriate for Mr McLeay to accept a personal campaign donation from GEO while he was vice-chairman of the public accounts committee that was examining the GEO private prison contract," Ms Hale said. "It is fundamentally wrong for a company that is receiving public funds from a government contract to be donating some of those funds back to the party that granted them the contract. All of this is even more concerning when the donations are from a company with the international reputation of the GEO group." Ms Hale will today introduce a private member's bill into the upper house to prevent the privatisation of the state's prisons unless any sale has the support of both houses of Parliament.

January 28, 2009 Daily Advertiser
TWO Junee jail inmates yesterday spent hours on a roof of the prison in baking heat after what is believed to be an escape attempt was foiled by guards. Guards late last night were trying to talk the men down from their rooftop perch. The drama began about 3.30pm when the prisoners reportedly made a dash for a maintenance vehicle apparently with the intention of making a jail break. The men were prevented from getting into the vehicle by guards so they apparently scaled a protective fence and climbed onto the metal roof. From a road outside the prison about three hours into the stand-off, armed officers wearing safety vests and helmets could be seen several metres away from the two shirt-less prisoners. The prisoners were well within the perimeter of the jail and there was no chance of them escaping. An ambulance was on stand-by at the prison, built for minimum and medium security inmates. The company that runs the privately operated 750-bed prison for the State Government, the GEO Group, last night was not commenting on the incident, and it was not known if the facility was in general lockdown. Negotiations were still ongoing last night.

October 24, 2008 Daily Advertiser
TOILET paper became the new currency in the Junee jail when a shortage of the product hit the prison, the NSW Ombudsman has said in his latest report. The issue was one of a number of case studies in the Ombudsman’s just-released 2007-08 annual report. “When an inmate called from Junee to complain that their toilet roll ration had been reduced, we made immediate inquiries with the centre,” the case study said. “Reducing or removing basic necessities, such as toilet paper, can spark an easily preventable incident in a correctional centre. “We were told that each inmate usually received two rolls per week, but if they ran out they could get more from the sweepers (inmate domestic workers) in their pod. “The sweepers, however, no longer had a supply and – in the absence of sufficient toilet rolls – they had become jail currency and were being stolen from the cells. “When we called the centre they were not aware of any change to the ration of toilet paper and undertook to investigate and rectify the situation immediately.” The annual report said that in recent years the number of complaints against the jail was significantly higher than from other similar sized correctional centres. There was a slight decrease this year in the number of complaints, down from 360 in 2006-07 to 341, of which there were 83 formal complaints and 258 informal complaints. Only the Metropolitan Special Programs Centre, with 344 complaints, had more complaints than Junee. Junee has one of the largest prison populations in the state and is the only privately-operated jail in NSW. It is run for the government by the GEO Group. A spokesman for the company, Ken Davis, said it had noted the Ombudsman’s remarks and looked forward to working with him to address any issues.

October 23, 2008 ABC News
Junee Correctional Centre has been trialling new staffing arrangements in a bid to address ongoing high complaint rates. The State Ombudsman's annual report, which was released yesterday, says the number of complaints from the Junee Jail in recent years is significantly higher than from other similar sized centres. It says that may be due to physical separation of inmates and staff. The report says the centre's management is trialling placing staff in inmates' accommodation for fixed times each day to handle requests and questions which has resulted in a slight reduction in calls to the Ombudsman's office. Junee Correctional Centre received 341 complaints over the year. The report also includes details of an inmate reporting a reduction in toilet roll rations and says at the time of the complaint the toilet rolls became jail currency and were stolen from cells. It says when management was contacted they acted immediately to investigate and fix the situation. In a statement, the GEO Group, which runs the jail, says it acknowledges the remarks and looks forward to working with the Ombudsman to address any issues.

January 18, 2006 ABC
Junee Jail has restructured its senior management in response to an inmate's escape last year. Three senior staff were suspended when Lon Thomas McAlister walked out of the prison in October, but they have now returned to work. The Geo group's Colin Kelaher says the managers have retained their roles, but some duties have been delegated to other positions. He says management is still implementing the findings from the security review. "One of the recommendations that did come out of it and we've recognised that is ... the importance of restructuring in the staff at the facility to, I guess, more importantly oversee some of the roles of security there and ... we're doing that at the moment," he said.

November 1, 2005 ABC
A prisoner who escaped from Junee jail in south-western New South Wales last week is believed to have walked out the jail's front gate. Forty-six-year-old Lon Thomas McAllister was serving an eight-year term for armed robbery and is considered dangerous. The manager of Junee jail, Derek Bullock, says it appears McAllister was very well organised and left town quickly on Friday, possibly via the jail's main entrance. "Because our perimeter fence was not breached, the anecdotal information is that this prisoner actually managed to get through our front gate," he said. Corrective Services officials travelled to Junee at the weekend to assess security at the jail and its operator, the GEO group, plans another security review tomorrow.

January 14, 2005 Sidney Morning Herald
Longer sentences, tougher bail laws and higher police numbers have boosted NSW's prison population to 9000 for the first time, the Premier, Bob Carr, boasted yesterday. In another development yesterday, the head of a parliamentary committee launched an inquiry into the cost-effectiveness of the state's only private prison, run by the US company GEO Group Australia. Labor MP Matt Brown, the chairman of the NSW Parliament's public accounts committee, said he wanted to inquire into whether the Junee prison really was value for money. Mr Brown said the committee would look into explanations from the Department of Corrective Services that maximum-security jails had higher costs than the medium-security Junee and that housing female prisoners involved special needs and higher costs. As well, publicly owned jails were older and not as cost-efficient to run as Junee, which was built under the Greiner government in the early 1990s. Mr Brown said Labor policy opposed the building of private jails. The review would examine the performance of privately run prisons in other states.

September 13, 2004 ABC
Prison officers are back on duty at Junee jail in southern New South Wales after a seven-day strike. The action by 120 officers ended on Friday night when members of the Miscellaneous Workers Union voted to return to work.Union spokesman Geoff Lawler says he will be seeking a commitment to full staffing levels at talks with GEO Australia on Wednesday.

September 9, 2004 ABC
Striking prison officers at Junee Jail in southern New South Wales are threatening to obstruct entry to the prison unless management responds to their demands soon. About 120 officers walked off the job nearly a week ago, complaining about staffing levels and pay. The private prison operator, GEO Australia, has brought in outside workers to run the medium security facility and says the matter is in the Industrial Relations Commission. Union organiser Geoff Lawler says the striking guards may use force to stop people crossing the picket line.

April 16, 2004 ABC
The operator of Junee private prison has dismissed concerns about the jail's security, after the escape of an inmate yesterday.  Police are still searching for Christopher Pritchard, who they say has a history of violence and should not be approached.  It is believed the Gosford man was serving out the end of a sentence, which had been re-instated after he breached parole.  Police say the 23-year-old escaped on a prison motorbike while working outside the prison grounds and then used a screwdriver to hijack a car.  Police suspect he then headed towards Sydney after stealing a second car.  Junee prison director Dom Karauria says a review of security will be conducted, but denies the security breach is cause for alarm.  "I don't think the community needs to be too concerned about the degree of security in the prison itself," he said.  "I mean, when you put things in perspective this inmate has been working out in the community for the last six months and working out in the prison farm. There's been no breach of the prison security itself." 

May 24, 2001
A snap strike at the privately run Junee Jail has ended, with the 600 prisoners now free to leave their cells, but the parties remain far from agreement.  The jail's managers have told the Industrial Relations Commission they are losing money on a new contract to manage the jail.  In a dispute over the introduction of 12 hour shifts, officers picketed the entrance to Junee Jail today, forcing managers to cut a hole in one fence and call in the police to gain alternative access.  At a hearing in Wagga Wagga, Commissioner Tabbaa says she was very disappointed Australasian Correctional Management did not adhere to her recommendations on roster changes, sparking the walkout.  ACM's representative told the hearing the company is losing money on the current shift arrangements.  (ABC News)

Maribyrnoug Detention Centre
Serco (Global Solutions, formerly run by GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections)
January 20, 2012 The Herald Sun
THE Melbourne immigration detention centre, which holds killers, drug dealers and failed asylum seekers, has had 25 escapees in three years. Seventeen fugitives, including drug dealers, are still on the run. Most were on overstayed or cancelled visas, and are awaiting deportation. The revolving door at Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre has forced three internal security reviews that recommended significant changes. Now, red-faced services provider Serco is scrambling to extend electric fences and add what immigration department officials describe as "additional anti-climb measures". One source said changes to "soften" the centre's image after 2005, which eventually led to an electric fence replacing razor wire, meant easier escape routes. The source said the centre was not a prison but Serco had not given staff what was needed to manage trouble-makers or felons.

July 8, 2011 Herald Sun
In a major security breach, three men awaiting deportation effortlessly opened doors and internal gates on their way to scaling the centre's perimeter fence. One was armed with a 45cm double-sided blade believed to have been smuggled inside. The breakout, in the early hours of Monday, has enraged departmental chiefs and left red-faced security provider Serco facing an estimated $1 million fine. The Immigration Department said the three were Vietnamese nationals detained for overstaying visas. One failed to climb the fence, injuring his hand. His accomplices succeeded, only to be recaptured 30 minutes later by police dogs after the alarm was raised. All three are back in detention. The Herald Sun believes the escapees told authorities a security officer gave them swipe cards and impressions of padlock keys. Sources said the incident highlighted a growing "prison culture" in the centre, which is also home to detainees with convictions including murder and drug crimes. The department would not confirm or deny that keys and swipes were used, citing "operational reasons". But it has ordered an investigation and demanded an explanation from Serco. The foreign-owned company is paid about $1 billion to run the nation's detention centres. Serco recently brought in dozens of foreign staff, mostly from the UK, to staff its centres amid the rising numbers of boat arrivals.

January 9, 2011 Sunday Herald Sun
A SECURITY firm may be fined over the escape of an Italian national from the Maribyrnong Detention Centre. A source told the Sunday Herald Sun the detainee scaled a high wall on New Year's Eve using a rope made of bedsheets. A spokesman from the Immigration Department said an investigation had begun to see if the escape was a result of "lax standards" by the centre operator, Serco. "We're awaiting an urgent report from Serco explaining the details of the guarding and security at the time," the spokesman said. "There are clauses in our contract, which so far we haven't used, that fines can be imposed for lax standards and we'll be looking closely at that. It shouldn't be happening." Thirty-five detainees have escaped from Serco-operated facilities in the past 12 months. Twenty-three have been recaptured. "We have a contract in place to ensure that Serco provides the service we require," he said. "They are required to provide secure detention services. Any escape is unacceptable and the contract has provisions for fines. "We're waiting on the details of what they say happened to work out what we can do to improve standards."

October 6, 2010 The Age
An Indonesian man who overstayed his visa has sparked a police hunt by escaping from the Maribyrnong Detention Centre in Melbourne's west last night, says the immigration department. The man, believed to be in his 30s, fled the facility about 8.45pm last night after being taken into custody on September 21 during an operation to find people who had overstayed their visas. A spokeswoman said for the immigration department said an investigation would be launched into how the man fled the facility, which is managed by private company SERCO. "Victorian police have been notified and the detention service provider has commenced a full investigation into the incident," said the spokeswoman. "The department will work actively with the detention services provider to investigate systems, procedures and infrastructure that are currently in place." SERCO is required to prepare a report for the department explaining the circumstances of the disappearance. The man is the second person to escape from the centre in recent months, with a Cambodian national fleeing while on a recreational visit to a nearby ten-pin bowling centre in early August. He managed to evade two security officers who accompanied him on the excursion.

August 3, 2010 The Age
A Cambodian national locked up for overstaying his visa is on the run after escaping from security officers during a trip to a bowling alley in Melbourne's west. The man, who was being held at the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre, was taken to the Highpoint AMF Bowling centre in Maribyrnong on Saturday with another inmate and two security officers as part of an organised excursion. After bowling a few frames and eating some fast food, the man fled from the centre about 11.15am and hailed a taxi, a caller to Radio 3AW's Rumour File said today. He remains on the run despite a large-scale search involving Victoria Police. A Department of Immigration and Citizenship spokesman this morning confirmed the man's escape, and said an investigation had been launched into his disappearance. "The man originally from Cambodia and another client were being escorted by two detention service private officers when the man ran off," he said. "Extra ... staff were immediately called to the scene but the man was unable to be relocated. Victoria Police were notified and the department has called for a full report into the incident from (the private security contractor) Serco." The caller to 3AW said the man was captured on CCTV camera hailing a cab outside the bowling alley. "No resource was spared looking for the light-footed escapee, last seen wearing a pair of two-toned, talcum powder-filled, non-marking soled shoes with the number six on the back of them," he said. "Going back over the CCTV footage the client had hailed a cab, changed a few lanes and was last seen heading in an easterly direction." The Department of Immigration and Citizenship spokesman said he could not release the man's identity or age for privacy reasons. He said clients at immigration detention centres were regularly taken on excursions. "Detention centres are not prisons so its important to provide clients with recreational opportunities for their welfare," he said. "The department continues to look for him. Vic Police have been notified."

June 3, 2010 9 News
Two managers have been sacked and two others have been transferred following the escape of six people from Sydney's Villawood Immigration Detention Centre. Nine people initially escaped from the complex in Sydney's southwest in the early hours of Tuesday, May 25. Three were detained by police as they escaped, but six others, all Chinese nationals, remain at large. Serco, the UK-based security company that manages the centre, undertook a "comprehensive investigation" following the escape, Serco spokeswoman Emma Needham said in a statement. "Serco has dismissed two employees today and redeployed two others following an internal investigation into last week's escapes from Villawood," she said. "In order to take the management of the centre forward and deliver the transformation required, changes to a number of positions were necessary." The company faces fines and sanctions imposed by the federal government following the escape. Immigration Minister Chris Evans has ordered an investigation into the breakout, the latest in a series of escapes from Villawood. Serco also manages security at the Maribyrnong Detention Centre in Melbourne's western suburbs. It came under fire after a Chinese national slipped away from two Serco security staff while on a visit to the Melbourne Aquarium in March.

April 2, 2010 The Age
A CHINESE man has embarrassed his private security minders by escaping from immigration detention while on an excursion at the Aquarium in central Melbourne. The man, who was waiting to be sent back to China, escaped while in the supervised care of officers from SERCO, a private firm that receives $70 million a year to manage Australia's detention facilities. Immigration Minister Chris Evans yesterday called for a detailed explanation of the circumstances surrounding the incident that comes on the heels of controversial escapes from Sydney's Villawood detention centre. It is believed the man slipped away on March 24 during a routine group excursion from the Maribyrnong Detention Centre, where he was being held. Melbourne police were immediately alerted. The man is the fourth Chinese national to escape from SERCO's custody in the past week. Only days ago three Chinese scaled a high-security fence at Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre. They have not been seen since. A spokeswoman for the minister said escapes were not acceptable and that SERCO was contractually obliged to guarantee the detention of unlawful non-citizens. SERCO faces heavy fines under its contract with the federal government if it fails to present a plausible explanation for the lapses. Although the man was not considered dangerous, he was due for removal to China for breaches of visa conditions. It is believed several officers were at the Aquarium, but they failed to notice the man slip into a large crowd at the tourist attraction. He was with other detainees from the Maribyrnong centre. It is believed he had been detained several times by immigration compliance officers for breaching his visa conditions before being taken into custody. An Immigration Department spokesman said detainees were held under administrative law and were not subject to criminal punishment. Detainees were provided with regular excursions under duty-of-care requirements. Senator Evans has already ordered an inquiry into security at Villawood where SERCO has sacked 10 staff over security breaches.

December 16, 2008 The Age
THREE detainees at Maribyrnong Detention Centre pulled off brazen escapes at the weekend, raising questions about immigration security. The latest escapes come less than two months after a Vietnamese detainee posed as a visitor and walked straight past security guards. Opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone called on detention centre operator GSL to review security, after two Vietnamese men scaled a five-metre fence at the rear of the detention centre at lunchtime on Saturday and disappeared. The following night, Turkish man Mustafa Bectis managed to shrug off his two escorts at the emergency department of the Western General Hospital in Footscray, where he was being treated for a cut arm. "If someone has just climbed over the back fence, GSL does need to very urgently review its security," Ms Stone said. "If another person is being escorted to hospital and managed to escape then certainly they've got to take a lot more care." Mr Bectis, who was not handcuffed or shackled, raced through a door and vanished. The two escapes are believed to have been assisted by people from the outside, with detainees able to communicate using email and mobile phones. Police were immediately called in both instances by GSL, but have been unable to trace the absconders. Ms Stone also criticised the decision not to make the escapes public, saying that residents who lived near the detention centre could have helped the police. "Australia is such a multicultural place, it is very easy for anyone to blend into the background — we don't require a showing of papers at borders between states," she said. She also said GSL may need to review its mobile phone policy where a detainee had a high flight risk. In the past three years, 20 detainees have escaped while at Maribyrnong, Villawood and Perth detention centres, mostly while being escorted to court or on social outings. Four escapes have been from Maribyrnong this year, compared with just two from Villawood and one from Perth. The weekend shemozzle has come at a sensitive time for GSL, which hopes its contract will be renewed after the former government re-tendered all detention services. A decision is expected to be announced in the first half of next year. The Government is already under pressure over its border protection policy, with the Opposition claiming the scrapping of temporary protection visas has made Australia a "soft target" for people smugglers. An Immigration Department spokesman said GSL would review security arrangements at Maribyrnong. "It is the responsibility of the detention services provider to ensure appropriate security is maintained at all times," he said. But he said email and mobile phone access were a "fundamental right" for people in immigration detention, and their use would not form part of the review. GSL's director of public affairs, Tim Hall, said escapes were a matter of great concern. "We constantly strive to balance the needs of clients who are being held in administrative detention, not imprisonment, against our obligation to ensure that they are securely detained," he said.

December 22, 2005 The Age
THE family of a Tongan man who died in controversial circumstances at the Maribyrnong detention centre five years ago has launched a damages action against the Immigration Department and the centre's former operators. In what is believed to be the first such legal action, the department and Australasian Correctional Management are being sued over the death of 53-year-old Viliami Tanginoa five years ago today. Law firm Slater & Gordon has launched the claim on behalf of Mr Tanginoa's widow , Tongi; his sons Viliami jnr and Antonia; daughter Polsapina; and four half brothers. Lawyer Dina Tutungi said Mr Tanginoa's life was treated with "reckless indifference reflecting a culture of contempt towards people held in detention in Australia". The father of seven climbed to the top of a basketball pole to protest at his intended deportation that day. He had come to Australia for work 17 years earlier, overstaying his original visa. He was arrested at Swan Hill in August 2000 and applied for a bridging visa but was refused. He had been on top of the basketball ring for eight hours when he plunged to his death. Detainees claimed he was taunted by guards just before he fell. Ms Tutungi said a video shows staff placing mattresses underneath the pole and then removing them, offering Mr Tanginoa cigarettes to come down while one officer bounced a ball in his vicinity. A coronial inquiry blasted ACM, saying while the immediate cause of Mr Tanginoa's death was his decision to jump "another cause was the inaction of the detention centre's management; a failure to manage". Coroner Phil Byrne said ACM had failed to call in specialist police negotiators: "If expert negotiators had been involved, I am satisfied the tragic event would have been prevented." Slater & Gordon said Mr Tanginoa's family was not initially informed of his death and were distressed at discovering autopsy marks on his body when it was returned to Tonga. There was also a failure to advise the family of the original inquest on January 20 to 24 and they attended a partly reheard inquest six months later.

Lack of resources under a "tight" Federal Government contract influenced the handling of events surrounding the death of a detention centre inmate, a psychiatry expert told an inquest yesterday.  Forensic psychiatry professor Paul Mullen also questioned the approach of Maribyrnong Detention Centre staff during a stand-off in 2000.  Coroner Phil Byrne is investigating the death of Viliami Tanginoa, 53, who either fell or jumped to his death after spending eight hours on top of a basketball pole on the day he was to be deported to Tonga.  Mr Tanginoa, who had been in detention for four months, had overstayed his three-month tourist visa by 17 years. His application for a refugee visa in 1994 was refused and subsequent appeals rejected.  Professor Mullen, clinical director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health, criticised the Immigration Department for not providing adequate resources to the centre's operators, Australasian Correctional Management, under a "tight contract". "Where was the plan, where was the structure, where were the people who had the training and the ability to carry out that structured plan?"  Professor Mullen also said the self-described "wait and see approach" of staff was bordering on contempt of Mr Tanginoa.  (The Age)

Melbourne Custody Centre
Melbourne, Australia
Group 4 (formerly run by GEO Group formerly known as Wackenhut)
February 25, 2010 AAP
CONDITIONS in Melbourne's custody centre breach the Victorian government's own human rights charter, the independent watchdog says. In a wide-ranging report, Ombudsman George Brouwer says holding people at the Melbourne Custody Centre without access to daylight or fresh air is in breach of the charter of human rights. Victoria became the first state to have a human rights charter, which was passed by parliament in July 2006. People arrested by police are being held at the centre for an average of three to four days, despite Mr Brouwer recommending three years ago holding times be limited to overnight or over a weekend. "I remain concerned that persons can still be held at the Melbourne Custody Centre for longer than overnight or over a weekend," Mr Brouwer said in his report tabled to state parliament today. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. .End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. "Detaining people underground, without access to daylight or fresh air, is in my view inappropriate, inhumane and contrary to the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities." The centre is run by private operators GEO Group Australia, contracted by Victoria Police, and receives more than 11,000 people every year. It has a holding capacity of up to 100 people during the day and 67 at night. Corrections Minister Bob Cameron said people should expect their rights to be substantially curtailed in prison. When asked if it was appropriate people were denied access to fresh air and daylight for days he replied: "You know cells are not nice places, let's be very clear about that." Nationals corrections spokesman Peter Ryan said it was unacceptable for anyone to be held in the centre for more than 24 hours. "The conditions are archaic, they are in many senses inhumane," he said. Mr Brouwer has also raised concerns poor infection control in jails is putting the public at risk. "Infection control in prisons is an important public health issue and I am concerned by the time taken to fully implement the Communicable Diseases Policy," he said. "With the large number of prisoners serving short terms of imprisonment, coupled with high levels of re-offending and returns to the prison system, the risks to the health and wellbeing of prisoners and to the wider community are significantly increased." Mr Brouwer noted the department had taken some steps to reduce the transmission of blood-borne viruses and sexually transmitted infections among prisoners. Mr Brouwer's report tracks the progress of implementation of recommendations he made between July 2006 and June 2008. About one quarter of recommendations remain unimplemented.

February 7, 2010 The Sunday Age
THE state government is poised to award a multimillion-dollar prison contract to a private company whose human rights record has been called into question. The Sunday Age can reveal that private prison contractor G4S Australia & New Zealand is the preferred tenderer to take over the Melbourne Custody Centre, a city-based facility that each year processes 11,000 people through cells under the Magistrates Court. The private security firm was last year named in a damning West Australian Coroner's report, which found it had contributed to the ''wholly unnecessary and avoidable death'' of a 46-year-old Aboriginal man in its custody in January 2008. The company's record in Victoria is also marked by a coroner's finding last year that it contributed to the 2005 death of Ian Westcott, who died of an asthma attack in the G4S-run Port Phillip prison. A note found near his body read: ''Asthma attack. buzzed for help. no response.'' In 2000, a coroner found the company had failed to provide a safe environment at Port Phillip when four men hanged themselves in 1997. A 2006 report by the Victorian Ombudsman and the Office of Police Integrity found inadequacies in the way prisoners were transported, with insufficient attention paid to their conditions, including ''basic amenities for long trips''. Charandev Singh, a spokesman for the Centre for the Human Rights of Imprisoned People, said the decision to give G4S preferred tenderer status was shocking. ''The company's lethal record, combined with the circumstances of the horrific death of [the Aboriginal elder], appears to have been totally negated by the Brumby government and Victoria Police in their intention to award a further lucrative contract to this company.'' The Melbourne Custody Centre tender is a sensitive issue for the state government, which was last year criticised by prisoner advocates for renewing G4S's prisoner transport contract despite the WA Coroner's finding. The two companies shortlisted for the Melbourne Custody Centre - G4S and GEO Group Australia - both have blemished records in the eyes of human rights advocates. GEO Group Australia is the existing contractor and has been criticised by the Ombudsman several times for using excessive force on prisoners - most recently in August 2008. GEO, which has run the 30-cell facility for almost 11 years, was recently dropped from the shortlist when the government named G4S as preferred tenderer. Both firms are subsidiaries of multinational outfits specialising in security systems and correctional and detention facilities. The contract for management of the custody centre - which serves the court system but also operates as a holding facility for drug and alcohol-affected people - is yet to be signed with G4S, but is believed to be with Corrections Minister Bob Cameron. A G4s spokesman said he could not comment while the tender was still going. A spokesman for Mr Cameron said he was also unable to comment.

September 27, 2009 The Age
A PRISONER was assaulted and marched naked through the controversial Melbourne Custody Centre in an incident that breached his human rights, the Ombudsman has found. The August 2008 incident, revealed in the Ombudsman's recent annual report, led to the punishment of several officers from the prison's operator, the private company GEO Group Australia. Ombudsman George Brouwer found officers had used excessive force on the prisoner. The inmate, who had soiled himself, was moved naked through the centre to the showers. ''I considered this treatment not to be in accordance with the values enshrined in the Charter [of Human Rights and Responsibilities],'' Mr Brouwer said in his report. The incident is the second use of excessive force against a prisoner in as many years at the custody centre. Victoria Police said GEO had reviewed its operating policies after the incident and implemented new measures to ensure there were no further breaches. The police would not say how the GEO officers were disciplined or if the company was fined, as when officers failed to protect an inmate bashed in 2005. The Sunday Age was unable to contact GEO Group Australia for comment.

December 13, 2007 Herald Sun
MORE than 20 prison guards have been sacked for sleeping on the job, getting too close to inmates and other protocol breaches over the past two years. The firm that runs the troubled Melbourne Custody Centre -- GEO Group Australia -- has sacked or let go 20 guards from its 14 Australian jails since January last year. GEO Group managing director Pieter Bezuidenhout told the Herald Sun that four of those were from Victoria. The company said that two guards had been dismissed for having inappropriate relationships with inmates; two for physically abusing inmates; one for sleeping on the job; one for misusing a prison vending machine; and one for accepting gift vouchers from a supplier. Mr Bezuidenhout said that another five guards had been sacked or resigned after launching vicious physical attacks on inmates in the Melbourne Custody Centre in 2005. One of those was David Eastham, 25, jailed last month for kicking an inmate as he lay handcuffed on the floor. The State Ombudsman found a culture of aggression in the centre, mostly instigated by a thuggish network called "The Family". After the Ombudsman's findings were made public last month, Mr Bezuidenhout told the centre's staff one violent incident was "one too many". Only one guard from Victoria's public prison system was sacked in the same period.

November 24, 2007 The Herald Sun
TORTURING prisoners at the Melbourne Custody Centre was commonplace, former staff claim. Three former MCC prison officers told the Herald Sun yesterday a clique of staff known as "The Family" regularly terrorised inmates. Their claims come as the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission warned the State Government of its responsibility to ensure all prisoners were treated humanely. Chief executive Helen Szoke said the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities comes into effect in January. Dr Szoke said the charter protected all Victorians. "The Government is accountable for the treatment of prisoners, whether they are in state-run institutions or privately run, like the MCC," she said. State Ombudsman George Brouwer this week accused the MCC group known as "The Family" of thriving on aggression and use of excessive force. He made public graphic CCTV footage of an alleged attack on a prisoner that may lead to three MCC staff being sacked and charged. Premier John Brumby yesterday described the footage as disturbing and unacceptable and vowed his Government would move to ensure nothing like it happened again. The MCC is run by private contractors, the GEO Group Australia, on behalf of Victoria Police and is housed in the basement below the Melbourne Magistrates' Court. Dr Szoke said she agreed with Mr Brouwer that the MCC needed a radical overhaul. "It is absolutely unacceptable to mistreat people in this way," she said. "We are appalled at the beating shown on CCTV. "I'd remind everyone that in relation to criminal conduct, detention is the punishment, not being beaten while detained." Former MCC employees Ros Atkinson and Bruna Moressi were among five female prison officers who first complained around 2002 about brutality and bullying at the custody centre. "We told the company, we told the Ombudsman, we told Victoria Police, we told members of Parliament, and others, but the situation didn't improve," Ms Atkinson said. "The Ombudsman ... revealed the torture and brutality we were warning about is still rampant. "It pains me to think of all the people who have been mistreated there in the years since we first raised the issue. "If the authorities had listened to us, then all that suffering could have been avoided." Ms Moressi called the MCC "a hellhole where blood is shed most days". The shocking alleged incidents outlined to the Herald Sun by Ms Atkinson, Ms Moressi and an anonymous third former employee included: THE near death of a prisoner who tried to hang himself after being beaten by staff. They put wet toilet paper over the camera in his cell so their brutality couldn't be seen. A MENTALLY ill prisoner who was refused medical help despite eating and drinking his own faeces and urine for three days. A DEEPLY religious inmate who begged staff not to remove his crucifix saw it ripped from his neck and crushed in front of him before his head was slammed into a desk so hard the walls around him were sprayed with blood. A spokesman for GEO yesterday said in a statement to the Herald Sun that the allegations raised by the former employees were false. He said the women had been dismissed over the past two years for improper conduct and claimed they were raising the allegations as a means of getting back at GEO.

November 24, 2007 The Age
THE State Government has made it more difficult for independent observers to monitor what goes on in jails, lawyers claim. "It's getting harder to get information about the way the prison system operates," said Hugh de Kretser, executive officer of the Federation of Community Legal Centres. "The Government, instead of increasing scrutiny, is going the other way," he said. This week, Brimbank Melton Community Legal Centre was told it could not set up a legal clinic at Port Phillip Prison to give advice on issues such as prisoners' treatment in jail, according to the centre's principal lawyer, Philip Cottier. In the past three months, the Government had moved to restrict prisoners' rights to make freedom of information requests and given jail governors overly wide discretion to restrict prisoners' mail, Mr de Kretser said. The laws about mail were badly drafted and could potentially capture even innocent mail exchanges, he said. Corrections Victoria had recently made secret key operational procedures about how guards should deal with force and firearms, Mr de Kretser said. These procedures were previously open to public scrutiny. "If we cannot access the rules Victoria's prisons operate under, how can we hold our prisons accountable to complying with them?" he said. The criticisms follow the release of a report this week by the State Ombudsman, George Brouwer, into a violent incident at the Melbourne Custody Centre earlier this year. Mr Brouwer found that guards used excessive force against a prisoner and called for a review of the centre, which is run by a private company, the GEO Group, under the supervision of Victoria Police. Deputy Ombudsman John Taylor told The Age that the custody centre was "a closed shop" with limited public scrutiny: "It's a place that no one can go. It's a de facto jail, but it's a police jail, and it's very hard to go there unless you are a lawyer or are from the Ombudsman's office." Mr de Kretser said Government monitoring of assaults by prison officers in privately run prisons was weak. "The private prison contractor and the Government have a common interest in burying the issues," he said.

November 22, 2007 The Age
A GROUP of aggressive guards known as "The Family" dominates the Melbourne Custody Centre and often uses excessive force against prisoners, an investigation by the State Ombudsman has been told. In a damning report tabled in Parliament yesterday, Ombudsman George Brouwer concluded that guards had seriously mistreated a remand prisoner being strip-searched on June 13. CCTV footage released yesterday shows the prisoner being grabbed by the throat and pushed to the ground, with several guards then piling on top of him. He received a cut to the head. Following a complaint from the prisoner, Mr Brouwer summonsed guards from the centre, an underground facility in Lonsdale Street below the Melbourne Magistrates Court. Mr Brouwer wrote: "It is of concern that witnesses spoke of a culture that involves staff favouritism; the centre being dominated by a few staff; tolerance of abuse of prisoners; and an environment where speaking out means job loss." The report quotes guards claiming that a clique nicknamed "The Family" instigated violence with prisoners and struck prisoners unnecessarily. "They thrive on aggression," one guard reported. Another claimed that prisoners were "badgered" verbally by guards with "degrading" remarks such as: "'You're a f---ing scumbucket. You deserve to be in here." A third guard said: "There's staff members that want to get at the prisoner that's on the floor simply because the prisoner wouldn't listen in the first instance." Mr Brouwer concluded that some of the staff had inappropriate attitudes, lacked proper training and failed to follow procedure. The centre is supervised by Victoria Police but is privately run by the GEO Group Australia, part of an $830 million international company with 59,000 beds in 68 jails and psychiatric hospitals in countries including the US, Canada and South Africa. The GEO Group runs four correctional facilities in Australia, including Fulham prison in Sale. Managing director Pieter Bezuidenhout said yesterday that the company disagreed with the Ombudsman's report. He said CCTV images showed the prisoner being aggressive towards a guard before he was restrained. The officers involved would face disciplinary action where necessary, he said. "GEO has a policy of zero tolerance for any failure to treat any person in custody appropriately." Victoria Police said it was investigating an alleged assault at the custody centre. Mr Brouwer wrote that oversight of the centre by GEO and Victoria Police was inadequate. The person in charge of reviewing incidents was three months behind in his viewing of CCTV footage, Mr Brouwer wrote. He recommended that: ■GEO comprehensively review the centre and the suitability of the officers involved in the June incident. ■Prisoners be allowed access to phones. ■Victoria Police review its supervision. ■The centre, which lacks fresh air and daylight, should only be used to hold prisoners for short stays (some prisoners are held for up to 28 days). A spokeswoman for Victoria Police said the centre's operations would be reviewed but it was impractical to limit it to being a daytime holding facility. Installing a phone system for prisoners would be almost impossible but the problem would be examined further. Deputy Ombudsman John Taylor told The Age that some previous complaints of violence at the centre could not be investigated properly because CCTV footage had not been available due to "alleged system failure".

November 22, 2007 The Age
Victoria's government watchdog has recommended sweeping changes to conditions at the Melbourne Custody Centre following publication of a report that found excessive force was used against a prisoner earlier this year. Victorian Ombudsman George Brouwer tabled his report on the incident in Parliament today and has made CCTV footage of the incident available on his website. The video shows the prisoner, identified by the ombudsman as Mr A, being subjected to an apparently unprovoked attack by custody officers in the MCC's strip-search room on June 13. The prisoner removes his shoes and shirt before one of two officers appears to suddenly grab him by the throat. Both officers then throw Mr A to the ground before four other officers enter the room. The prisoner, who had not been charged with an offence at the time of the attack, lodged a complaint with the ombudsman about one week after the incident. Mr Brouwer found one officer had "over-reacted" and another, a female officer, had cut the prisoner by striking him to the head. The company that is contracted to run the MCC by the State Government, GEO Group Australia, has agreed to discipline two officers following a recommendation from the ombudsman that their employment be reviewed. A third officer criticised by the ombudsman was overseas when the report was being written. Victoria Police are also investigating whether charges should be laid against any of the officers. GEO Australia has told the ombudsman it will review training programs for all its staff in conjunction with Victoria Police. Mr Brouwer's report is also scathing about MCC prisoners' lack of access to telephones. The custody centre, located beneath the Melbourne Magistrates Court, is used to detain people who have been arrested and are due to appear in court. Mr Brouwer's report says those in custody are unable to contact legal representatives or his office - an anomaly in Victoria's prison system. "The MCC appears to operate with only limited oversight by both GEO and Victoria Police and in my opinion the system in place to monitor incidents is unsatisfactory," Mr Brouwer's report says. In the ombudsman's annual report published in September, Mr Brouwer's office raised concerns about conditions at the MCC and about a lack of video footage of alleged assaults occurring there. The September report said the MCC was holding detainees in unsuitable conditions for periods of up to four weeks. "I have received complaints from prisoners about their treatment by custodial staff, particularly allegations of assault," the report said.

August 15, 2007 The Age
GUARDS did not step in as a prisoner bashed another inmate — at one stage wiping blood from his boots with a towel before continuing to kick his victim in the head as he lay on the ground — in a brutal 14- minute attack at the Melbourne Custody Centre on September 9, 2005. A video recording of the incident was tendered to the County Court yesterday as Jim Giannakoulis, 33, formerly of Altona North, pleaded guilty to one count of intentionally causing serious injury. Prosecutor Paul D'Arcy said the graphic footage showed Giannakoulis punching and kicking the victim, Boak Nguyen, in the head and body, slamming his head on the ground and jumping on it as he lay in the centre's exercise yard. Nguyen, who did not lodge a complaint about the incident, suffered cracked ribs, fractured cheekbones, bruises and cuts. Outside court, a spokeswoman for the GEO Group, which runs the Melbourne Custody Centre, said the company was fined under its contract "as a result of the time it took to respond". She said a figure of $75,000 quoted in court was "way over" the correct amount, which she would not disclose. "The delay was due to the fact that on the day they were installing a new closed-circuit TV system," she said. "The attack happened where they couldn't see, the other prisoners didn't react and there was nothing to suggest there was anything going on. The GEO staff intervened as soon as the incident was detected."

May 28, 2007 The Age
A car-theft suspect who went on the run after a prison mix-up led to her being released in place of another woman has appeared in court. Caroline Musadeq, 31, of Niddrie, this morning faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on a charge of escaping a police jail after being recaptured yesterday. Magistrate William O'Day remanded Musadeq in custody and ordered her to reappear on June 2. She did not apply for bail. Musadeq allegedly escaped from the Melbourne Custody Centre on May 18. Officers arrested and charged her about 3pm yesterday after spotting her in a car in Brighton Road in St Kilda. She and a 25-year-old woman charged with armed robbery were in the cells at the Lonsdale Street centre when the Musadeq was released on bail instead of the other woman. It is believed that the younger woman pretended to be asleep while Musadeq assumed her identity and was released. Police said in a statement last week that the younger woman could be charged with aiding and abetting an escape, and that Musadeq was not considered a risk. "The Melbourne Custody Centre is staffed by private contractors to Victoria Police," the statement said. "An internal inquiry is under way into operational procedures at the centre to avoid similar occurrences in the future." The GEO Group Australia administers the custody centre. Under its previous name of Australasian Correctional Management, it managed the Woomera Detention Centre and was subjected to federal inquiries.

May 22, 2007 Herald Sun
A PRISONER has walked out of the Melbourne Custody Centre after assuming another remanded woman's identity. The escapee tricked staff by swapping clothes with another inmate due to be released on bail, and changing her hairstyle to match hers. Custody centre sources said the woman, who was still free last night, had gone to some effort to escape. She also used the other woman's documents and learned personal details about her. The escapee, whose identity has not been revealed, walked to freedom about 4.30pm last Friday. Police said they would not reveal her details because the escaped woman, facing car-theft charges, was not considered dangerous. The Herald Sun has been told she is a 31-year-old Pacific Islander. "The woman has not been located and is not considered a risk to the community," a police spokeswoman said. Investigators have interviewed the other woman, 25, for allegedly aiding and abetting an escape. It is believed custody centre staff followed correct procedure but were still duped by the escapee, who was said to look similar to the woman whose identity she assumed. "Staff did everything by the book but these two (prisoners) cohorted to do this," a custody centre source alleged. The centre is staffed by private contractors. "An internal inquiry is under way into operational procedures at the centre to avoid similar occurrence in the future," the police spokeswoman said. The custody centre, which is under Melbourne Magistrates' Court in Lonsdale St, is run by the GEO Group Australia, formerly Australasian Correctional Management. GEO operations manager Peter Earnshaw confirmed the group was carrying out its own investigation and changes to procedures would be made if necessary. It is not the first time a person has been let free by mistake from the privately run centre. In July 2001, a man with convictions for aggravated burglary and drug matters was freed, despite having time to serve for breaching parole on a separate crime. Two months earlier, a convicted sex offender was mistakenly released despite having breached parole for a previous crime.

November 18, 2004 Herald Sun
A MELBOURNE police jail has been described as a hellhole and "the Bronx of prisons". The privately-run Melbourne Custody Centre is overcrowded, poorly managed and occasionally dangerous, according to disgruntled staff. Five women custody officers are on long-term stress leave because of what they claim are intolerable working conditions. Their complaints include sexual harassment, discrimination, bullying, victimisation, intimidation and poor treatment of inmates. They say the centre is understaffed and custody officers deal with inmates who are often drunk, violent, drugged or mentally disturbed. The centre, which is beneath Melbourne Magistrates' Court in Lonsdale St, is run by the GEO Group Australia, formerly Australasian Correctional Management. ACM, an offshoot of an American corrections giant, has a troubled history in Australia. There were federal government inquiries and penalties over the way it ran Woomera Detention Centre. The company also runs Fulham Correctional Centre. In May last year, Corrections Minister Andre Haermeyer began a probe into the company's operations. Bruna Moressi, one of the corrections officers on stress leave, said working at the centre became a nightmare. "Melbourne Custody Centre is mismanaged through and through," Ms Moressi said. "None of the staff have training with psych patients and the centre is not properly equipped to deal with these people," Ms Moressi said. Seriously disturbed inmates are often kept in cells with their wrists and ankles in handcuffs because staff have no other way of controlling them. Anne Chiang said she cracked under the pressure of working in the centre. She witnessed the inhumane treatment of a psychiatrically disturbed woman. "I complained. I sent a report up to head office and to the police monitor. I asked for an investigation, but nothing happened," she said.

May 29, 2002
Charges against Victoria's top prison official were dropped yesterday over an incident in which he allegedly threatened to discipline a custody officer. The Victorian WorkCover Authority withdrew a charge of failing to take reasonable care of an employee's health and safety against John Ralph Myers, the state's senior Australasian Correctional Management official. Mr Myers, who pleaded not guilty, was alleged to have threatened custody officer Wayne Rowe when he complained to WorkCover and the Community and Public Sector Union about staff shortages at the Melbourne Custody Centre. A WorkCover spokeswoman said the charges were withdrawn because Mr Myers had been charged as an employee putting another employee at risk, while evidence in court pointed to an employer-employee relationship. Mr Rowe, 47, told the Melbourne Magistrates Court he suffered insomnia and anxiety long after the alleged incident. Mr Myers, 42, of Sale, said that Mr Rowe should have raised his concerns with centre management before contacting outside organisations for advice. (The Age)

May 31, 2001
A man left with permanent brain damage after being bashed in a prison cell has issued a Supreme Court writ seeking damages from the company running the Melbourne Custody centre.  Michael Tully, aged 45, was bashed and stomped on by another prisoner, Ali Ali, who was consequently jailed for at least 13 years.  The writ's been issued by Mr. Tully's brother Rod, on his behalf and seeks unspecified damages from the prison operator, Australasian Correctional Management.  (ABC News) 

December 11, 2000
Michael Tully was told by his brother Rod that the man who viciously bashed him while they shared a small cell under the Melbourne Magistrates Court was yesterday sentenced to 16 years in jail. The former prison guard confirmed he would take legal action against Australian Correctional Management, the private managers of the Melbourne Custody Centre. He will allege the managers were negligent in not appropriately classifying his brother, who has schizophrenia, so as to ensure he was separated from the mainstream population. The court told Ali was returned to Cell 28, where he directed a prisoner to place a sticky label from a lunch box over the surveillance camera. He then knocked Mr. Tully to the ground, so that his head rested on a cement bench and stomped on it about five times. Judge Anderson described the incident, which took place last April, as a "cowardly attack on a defenseless man". He also said the overcrowded conditions in the cells were "entirely inappropriate". Judge Anderson said Ali had counted on the prison culture of silence, but th