What happens when you turn administration of a detention centre over to a profit-driven private company?
“In Australia I think a decision was made many years ago to outsource detention centres because it made the government in its own mind less responsible for what happened inside those centres. When something goes wrong, or there’s a riot, the government blames the service provider – the private company – and the private company blames the government, this is a perfect arrangement. What you see in theory is a great deal of accountability, checks and balances, in practice these are rarely enforced.” – Antony Loewenstein
Bart Denaro looks into the bipartisan pastime of privatising asylum seeker detention, featuring interviews with Antony Loewenstein, author of Profits of Doom, Brynn O’Brien, an international lawyer and researcher specialising in the value chain of asylum seeker detention, and Ramesh Ferndandez, a refugee and the CEO of RISE. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Tony Burke were approached for interviews but failed to respond.