Two refugees who died in their cells at Sydney’s Villawood Detention Centre in 2019 had a history of self-harm and substance abuse when they were transferred from prison into immigration detention, yet processes to manage these risks either did not exist or were not followed.
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Detainees also claimed that drugs were easily accessible, and exposed people to addiction relapse, mental illness and violence. Some were openly growing marijuana plants in their rooms at Villawood while, separately, a Serco employee was criminally charged during a corruption investigation into drug trafficking in Melbourne’s immigration detention centre.
Data requested by Greens senator David Shoebridge showed there had been 714 incidents of self-harm in the past five years, and 1965 incidents where self-harm was threatened.
Shoebridge said Serco had profited from running a “brutal immigration detention regime” that separated families and subjected people to deeply harmful conditions.
“Whether it is Serco, or some other global punishment corporation, immigration detention in Australia is toxic. It needs urgent and systemic change,” he said.
“Look around the world: in the UK, US, Canada, and Germany, people rarely stay longer than two months in immigration detention; in Australia, it’s two years.
“Australia has a highly respected legal system that protects people’s rights. That’s why the government, through detention and private companies like Serco, have tried to get around the rule of law. We are a worse country for it.”
Serco will finish its contract on December 10, after which there is a transition period of up to 180 days.
A spokesman for the Home Affairs Department said it was finalising the tender process for a new immigration detention contractor.
“In line with probity requirements, and to ensure a fair and equitable procurement process, the department will not be providing any further information,” he said.
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“Serco’s performance of the onshore detention contract is governed by an existing contract which is closely managed by the department and [Australian Border Force].”
Both the private companies that have run Australia’s detention centres under multibillion-dollar contracts for the past decade – Serco, with responsibility for security and non-health welfare services, and International Health and Medical Services, which runs medical care – will no longer operate them.
The IHMS health services contract, worth $789 million over 10 years, also expired this year. The federal government has entered a new $866 million contract with Healthcare Australia.
A Home Affairs official told Senate estimates last week that the new contractor would provide a “different type of service with a range of different supports like telehealth, increased hours of clinical teams being on site in centres, and clinical case managers.”
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