Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM.
Speaker 1: For more than a decade, the British multinational Circo has
Speaker 1: managed Australia's Onshore immigration detention system. During that time, they're
Speaker 1: rating billions of taxpayers dollars and helped build what some
Speaker 1: described as one of the most secretive and extreme detention regimes.
Speaker 1: Their time has also been plagued by scandals and allegations
Speaker 1: of mistreatment and disproportionate use of force. Now the government
Speaker 1: has decided not to renew Circo's contract, choosing instead to
Speaker 1: go with a US private prison operator. Today journalists have
Speaker 1: contributed to the Saturday paper Denham Sadler on the ugly
Speaker 1: legacy of Circo and the future of immigration detention in Australia.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday January thirty. Daniman, You've been reporting on Australia's
Speaker 1: immigration detention system for ten years now, so can you
Speaker 1: tell me about Circo.
Speaker 2: Circo is this massive conglomerate based in the UK. They
Speaker 2: have a market cap of about three billion dollars and
Speaker 2: they're listening on the London Stock Exchange and they basically
Speaker 2: try and win any work that the government wants to outsource.
Speaker 3: What does a career with CIRCO look like. It's secure
Speaker 3: employment where training is provided, working in a DOS.
Speaker 2: So they operate across defense, they operate in the space sector,
Speaker 2: they run cleaning services, and they have a massive presence
Speaker 2: in the justice space, so they're on prisons and they
Speaker 2: run immigration detention centers.
Speaker 1: Registered nurses, corrective case officers, security and intelligence officers, vocational trainers,
Speaker 1: trade instructors and so much more.
Speaker 3: It's real jobs for real people.
Speaker 2: And they've been running the immigration detention centers, all the
Speaker 2: onshore centers in Australia for about fifteen years. So has
Speaker 2: this reputation across the years for being basically akin to prison,
Speaker 2: very highly securitized, a focus on kind of safety and
Speaker 2: security over anything else, over the well being of people,
Speaker 2: and that's what a lot of advocates and people that
Speaker 2: have been through the system have said as well, that
Speaker 2: it's led to a lot of issues with how people
Speaker 2: are treated today. The Karake website released a manual which
Speaker 2: has been given out by CERCO to the people it
Speaker 2: employs to work at its immigration detention center.
Speaker 4: It is a last resort, as it says, you know,
Speaker 4: getting into a quote fight with asylum seekers. But you know,
Speaker 4: if you read through the document, there's quite a few
Speaker 4: use of force issues. There's instructions on how to kick, punch,
Speaker 4: jab fingers into detainee whims, you know, pressure point tactics,
Speaker 4: which are obviously very controversial.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of scandals and kind of there's
Speaker 2: been incidents of self harm. There's been a lot of
Speaker 2: valegations of human rights abuses.
Speaker 5: Professor Louise Newman from Monash University tell the Joint Select
Speaker 5: Committee into the Immigration detentions at a network there's no
Speaker 5: medical review process for the use of solitary confinement in
Speaker 5: detention centers. She said, some staff at the centers run
Speaker 5: by the company Circo even carrying knives to cut down
Speaker 5: asylum seekers who try to hang themselves.
Speaker 2: And a lot of concerns about how people are treated
Speaker 2: in these centers and how.
Speaker 1: Much money they raked in from the comwealth over the years.
Speaker 2: They've received more than seven point five billion dollars across
Speaker 2: about fifteen years of contracts, so that's across two contracts
Speaker 2: and one of those contracts was extended many many times.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's very lucrative business. They've won a lot
Speaker 2: of money.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's a lot of money over that time.
Speaker 1: Before we get into detail about some of those incidents
Speaker 1: and scandals, you mentioned what was it like before CIRCO
Speaker 1: came into the picture. How much has the immigration detention
Speaker 1: system changed.
Speaker 2: This was something that surprised me or bit some advocates
Speaker 2: I talked to remember kind of twenty years ago, you
Speaker 2: could go in on a weekend and take someone out
Speaker 2: of the network and take them to the beach or
Speaker 2: take them to a church service, and so there was
Speaker 2: a different level of security to the system. But across
Speaker 2: that time, we've obviously seen seeking asylum and immigration become
Speaker 2: such a large political issue, and it's become a national
Speaker 2: security issue, and we've seen the rise and off short
Speaker 2: attention and everything like that as well. That's transformed it
Speaker 2: into one that is much closer to a prison network
Speaker 2: and with a focus on securitization.
Speaker 1: So wats the hardline approach mat for people in detention?
Speaker 1: What does it like to be in detention?
Speaker 2: So one of the men I spoke to for the story,
Speaker 2: his name's Mustaffer Azima Taba, and he's known as Moz
Speaker 2: and he's a couraged asylam seeker who was eventually medivaced
Speaker 2: to Australia as part of that cohort of asylum seekers
Speaker 2: that were taken to Australia for medical means. And throughout
Speaker 2: this time he also has been recognized as a refugee
Speaker 2: to a legitimate refugee and then after being medivac he
Speaker 2: spent about fourteen months in hotel detention. So CO also
Speaker 2: operate these hotels at service detention centers.
Speaker 6: The government used the hotel as prison to lock me
Speaker 6: up and the situation made me more sick. My body
Speaker 6: is trembling when I think about the time I was
Speaker 6: in those hotels.
Speaker 2: He spoke to me of this regime where CIRCO basically
Speaker 2: just controlled his entire life, which was restricted to this
Speaker 2: tiny hotel room where he could barely open the windows.
Speaker 6: Definitely, it was worse than Manus Island. I was locked
Speaker 6: up on the third floor of the Mantra and the
Speaker 6: Park prison. I spent twenty three hours a day in
Speaker 6: a room. Officers ten times a day came to the room.
Speaker 2: And one of the biggest things he talks about a
Speaker 2: lot about the trauma is that he was just pat
Speaker 2: searched constantly by the circle guards. He says across his
Speaker 2: time in the hotel, he was pat searched about four
Speaker 2: hundred times, and he said this has a really huge
Speaker 2: impact on him and his mental health and was very triggering.
Speaker 2: And there was another case that the as An Equity
Speaker 2: Center settled with CIRCO and the government in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: and that related to an asylum seeker called you See,
Speaker 2: and he was forced to wear handcuffs every time he
Speaker 2: left the detention center. He was being held out to
Speaker 2: access medical treatment and he, similar to Moz just says
Speaker 2: this has had a very triggering effect on him and
Speaker 2: it was very traumatizing and did impact his ability to
Speaker 2: access that medical treatment as well. And these incidents definitely
Speaker 2: aren't isolated cases as well, so we do thanks to
Speaker 2: the parliamentary system, we have a bit of information on
Speaker 2: how rife these things are, and some stats released by
Speaker 2: Home Affairs shows there are actually more than fifteen incidents
Speaker 2: of use of force on an average day in detention
Speaker 2: and these use of force includes the use of handcuffs,
Speaker 2: and there was also at least one incident of self
Speaker 2: harm on an average day as well across the last
Speaker 2: five years.
Speaker 1: Right, and so looking back on Circo's reign. Advocates and
Speaker 1: informed detain these the people you've spoken to, are they
Speaker 1: optimistic that it's over.
Speaker 2: Nearly every advocate I talked to that has fort Circo
Speaker 2: over these years and represented people in the detention centers,
Speaker 2: they're definitely not upset to be seen in the back
Speaker 2: of Circo. But there's no positivity at all that anything's
Speaker 2: going to change when the government has brought in just
Speaker 2: another prison provider, another company that has a reputation for
Speaker 2: certain conditions in their centers. Green Senator David Shubridge told
Speaker 2: me that he thinks it's the most extreme and secretive
Speaker 2: detention regime in the world, and I think everyone's still
Speaker 2: pretty concerned that not much is going to change in
Speaker 2: the system.
Speaker 1: After the break. Why the government broke with Circo. Then
Speaker 1: the federal government has opted not to renew Cerco's contract
Speaker 1: for running Australia's immigration detention system. Do we know why
Speaker 1: they made that decision?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really interesting. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people I talked to that are very involved in the
Speaker 2: space and how what operates with surprise that Circo lost
Speaker 2: the contract. Potentially, there were just too many incidents over time,
Speaker 2: and they had a chance because the contract did end.
Speaker 2: They haven't scrapped the contract, it did come to an end,
Speaker 2: and they've found a new provider that they took that
Speaker 2: chance to bring someone else in. They did reply to
Speaker 2: some questions for me, they didn't really address any of
Speaker 2: the questions I put to them about Circo's track record
Speaker 2: and the fact that it is a private operator running
Speaker 2: it just makes it a bit harder to access information
Speaker 2: as an added layer of secrecy when they can claim
Speaker 2: commercial and confidence on some of these elements of the
Speaker 2: contract and hired that from the public.
Speaker 1: So what do we know about the new company that
Speaker 1: will take over?
Speaker 2: So the new providers a subsidiary of a company called
Speaker 2: Management and Training Corporations. They're a US based company and
Speaker 2: they run a number of for profit prisons in the
Speaker 2: United States as well as immigration detention centers.
Speaker 3: Riots took hold of a prison in Arizona.
Speaker 1: Sixteen people were injured, twelve hundred inmates were evacuated, Much
Speaker 1: of the facility itself was left un inhabitable.
Speaker 2: And there's been a lot of incidents reported on already.
Speaker 7: Their targeted destruction of MTC property strongly suggested The riots
Speaker 7: were brought on by inmate dissatisfaction with the way the
Speaker 7: prison was operated. There was a culture of disorganization, disengagement
Speaker 7: in disregard for a Department of Corrections.
Speaker 2: Policies, and a lot of legal suits that have kind
Speaker 2: of shed a bit of light on what the conditions
Speaker 2: alike in their centers, and it doesn't paint a very
Speaker 2: nice picture.
Speaker 3: The ACLU published its report last year. In addition to
Speaker 3: accounts of overcrowding and squalid conditions inside the tent city,
Speaker 3: inmates complained of excessive use of solitary confinement, a lack
Speaker 3: of activities to occupy their time, and inadequate medical treatment.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of allegations of mistreatment. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of concerns about access to health care and the provision
Speaker 2: of health care to people under their care.
Speaker 7: The toilets would back up and ras sewage would overflow
Speaker 7: into the kevlar tents.
Speaker 2: A lot of this has come out across the years.
Speaker 2: It's nothing new, and the federal government's definitely aware of it.
Speaker 3: An MTC spokesman emailed completely disagree with the anecdotal allegations
Speaker 3: in the ACLU report.
Speaker 2: So while the government is getting rid of Circo from
Speaker 2: the Immigration Attention Network. There aren't any real hopes that
Speaker 2: there's going to be a big change to the approach
Speaker 2: because they're bringing in another company that's known for running
Speaker 2: prisons in this way.
Speaker 1: So they're signed the contract. Do we know how much
Speaker 1: that was for and over what period?
Speaker 2: So the contract they've won runs for five years and
Speaker 2: it's worth more than two billion dollars, so it's another
Speaker 2: massive contract running for a long time and they're operating
Speaker 2: all the same facilities that Circle Or were, so they're
Speaker 2: taking over from midway through this year. I think it's
Speaker 2: important to note that CERCO still has a massive presence
Speaker 2: in Australia. They win a lot of government contracts and
Speaker 2: even in the justice space, they still run two really
Speaker 2: big prisons in Australia on massive contracts. So they run
Speaker 2: the Acacia Prison in Western Australia and the Clarence Prison
Speaker 2: in New South Wales which is fairly new and it's
Speaker 2: the biggest prison in Australia now, So they still have
Speaker 2: a massive presence even in justice and across everything else
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: And just finally, you've been covering these issues for a
Speaker 1: long time now, just broadly what do we need to
Speaker 1: do with our detention and immigration system to change the
Speaker 1: way we approach asylum seekers and those on visas.
Speaker 2: Oh, there's a lot we need to do, But I
Speaker 2: think when it comes to these centers, I think it's
Speaker 2: the approach to these people as criminals and that these
Speaker 2: places are serving as another prison if they're going to
Speaker 2: exist at all. They're not meant to be places where
Speaker 2: people spend a lot of time, but there are people
Speaker 2: spending years there, so that needs to be looked down.
Speaker 2: I think they're people that either have served a prison
Speaker 2: sentence or haven't received any sentence, so they shouldn't be
Speaker 2: treated like criminals. So I think that whole approach of
Speaker 2: security above all that else needs to be addressed. There's
Speaker 2: obviously huge problems with offshore processing and how people are
Speaker 2: treated on know WU. There's still people on know WU,
Speaker 2: so that needs to be addressed and those people need
Speaker 2: to be taken off there. And I think it's a
Speaker 2: wider issue of how we approach immigration and taking a
Speaker 2: more human rights focus approach versus this treating as a
Speaker 2: national security issue or a political tool that can be
Speaker 2: used to kind of win votes.
Speaker 1: Then then thanks for coming in thanks much for your time,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. In a statement to the Saturday paper,
Speaker 1: CERCO said we strongly reject the assertions about Circo's operations.
Speaker 1: Circo's commitment to the rights and welfare of detainees in
Speaker 1: our care has remained consistent since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: Also in the News today, underlying inflation for the December
Speaker 1: quarter eas to three point two percent, down from three
Speaker 1: point six percent in the previous quarter. It's the lowest
Speaker 1: rate since twenty twenty one. Meanwhile, the consumer price index
Speaker 1: rows by just zero point two percent in the same quarter,
Speaker 1: with the largest price rises coming from alcohol and tobacco.
Speaker 1: Some economists say the figures are promising for a potential
Speaker 1: interest rate cut. A new South Wales Police, the Australian
Speaker 1: Federal Police and ASO are investigating whether explosives discovered in
Speaker 1: Sydney's northwest were intended for an antisemitic attack. Police say
Speaker 1: they were alluded to the explosives, which were being stored
Speaker 1: in the caravan and dural ten days ago. An anti
Speaker 1: Semitic message was also found in the caravan. The powerjail
Speaker 1: police seized had a blast zone radius of forty meters
Speaker 1: in diameter. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.