Serco’s ugly legacy in Australia’s immigration detention system
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What was the scope of Serco’s involvement in Australia’s immigration detention system?
I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to Seven AM. At the start of last year's, Circo was about to hand over the contract to run Australia's immigration detention centres. The question at the time was whether its replacement, American private prison operator MTC, would be any better. Eighteen months later we have an answer. Recorded incidents across the detention network have more than doubled, from almost 800 to over 1600 since MTC took over. At the same time, Australia's offshore detention system on Nauru is expanding. Hundreds more people are being transferred to the island, and the Albanese government has announced plans to expand immigration detention as part of its crackdown on visa overstayers.
Today, we're returning to a conversation with journalist Denham Sadler about the private companies paid billions to run Australia's immigration detention system and the warnings that were there before MTC took over. It's Sunday, September twentieth. This episode first aired in january twenty twenty five. Denim, you've been reporting on Australia's immigration detention system for ten years now. So can you tell me about Circo?
Circo is this massive conglomerate based in the UK. They have a market cap of about three billion dollars and they're listed on the London Stock Exchange. And they basically try and win any work that the government wants to outsource.
What does a career with Circo look like? It's secure employment where training's provided. Working in a document.
How did Serco’s security‑first model affect detainees’ daily lives and rights?
So they operate across defence, they operate in the space sector, they run cleaning services and they have a massive presence in the the justice space. So they're on they run prisons and they run immigration detention centers.
registered nurses, corrective case officers, security and intelligence officers, vocational trainers, trade instructors and so much more. It's real jobs for real people.
And they've been running the immigration detention centres or the onshore centres in Australia for about fifteen years. Circo has this reputation across the years for being basically akin to prison, very highly securitized, a focus on kind of safety and security over anything else, over the well-being of people, and that's what a lot of advocates and people that have been through the system have said as well, that it's led to a lot of issues with how people are treated.
Today the Crikey website released a manual which has been given out by Circo to the people it employs to work at its immigration detention centre. It is a last resort as as it says, you know, getting into a quote fight with asylum seekers but You know, if you read through the document there's quite a few um use of force issues, there's um instructions on how to kick Punch jab fingers into detainee whims, um, you know, pressure point tactics which are obviously very controversial.
There's been a lot of scandals and kind of there's been incidents of self-harm, there's been a lot of allegations of human rights
abuses. Professor Louise Newman from Monash University told the Joint Select Committee into the Immigration Detention Centre Network. There's no medical review process for the use of solitary confinement in detention centers. She said some staff at the centers run by the company Circo even carry knives to cut down asylum seekers who try to hang themselves.
people are treated in these centres. And how much money have they ragged in from the Commonwealth over the years? They've received more than seven point five billion dollars across about fifteen years of contracts. So that's across two contracts and one of those contracts was extended many, many times.
What specific incidents and scandals exposed abuse under Serco’s management?
But um yeah, it's very lucrative business. So they've they've won a lot of money.
Okay, so that's a lot of money over that time. Before we get into detail about some of those incidents and scandals you mentioned, uh what was it like before Circo came into the picture? How much has the immigration detention system changed?
This was something that surprised me a bit some advocates I talked to remember kind of twenty years ago, you could go in on a weekend and take someone out of the network and take them to the beach or take them to a church service.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What was the scope of Serco’s involvement in Australia’s immigration detention system?
0:01–1:36
2
How did Serco’s security‑first model affect detainees’ daily lives and rights?
1:36–3:39
3
What specific incidents and scandals exposed abuse under Serco’s management?
3:39–5:32
4
Why did the Australian government decide to end Serco’s contract?
5:32–7:08
5
Who is the new operator MTC and what is its track record in US prisons?
7:08–9:01
6
How have use‑of‑force statistics changed since MTC took over?
9:01–10:38
7
What are advocates saying about the future of detention under MTC?
10:38–11:57
8
What reforms does the guest suggest to shift Australia’s immigration approach?
11:57–13:22
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