Extract from The Guardian
Former employee subcontracted to Wilson Security claims surveillance
team followed Greens senator around island and set up post to watch her
hotel room
Guards at the Nauru detention centre conducted sweeping surveillance of Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young to monitor her movements on the island, a former employee has alleged.
In an extraordinary submission to a Senate inquiry into serious allegations of abuse and conditions at the Australian-run Nauru detention centre, a former employee subcontracted to security provider Wilson Security accused the company of engaging in serious misconduct.
The employee raises serious allegations about the security company, including about staff fabricating military backgrounds to gain employment, discrimination against Australian guards and evidence of planned uses of excessive force against asylum seekers.
The submission also contains a disturbing account of Wilson Security guards being tasked to conduct surveillance of Hanson-Young during a recent visit to the island.
“When Senator Sarah Hanson-Young visited Nauru, Wilson Security organised a team from ERT [emergency response team] to spy on her while she was on Nauru. This included following her around the island while she was outside of the OPCs [offshore processing centres] and setting up an observation post to watch her room at the Menen hotel,” it says.
The call sign used by the guards to identify Hanson-Young in their surveillance was “raven”, according to the former employee.
The author of the submission also said they had seen a video from the body camera worn by a Wilson Security guard shortly before major unrest occurred at the centre on 19 July 2013. They said the video showed guards discussing the growing unrest and saying that if something happens they will go to a compound at the centre “and take cunts down”.
“From seeing this video it was obvious to me that these Wilson guards were planning to use unreasonable force and assault the asylum seekers even before the riot started,” the submission said.
It added: “I strongly recommend the centre is shut down, the remaining asylum seekers be processed onshore and all the refugees that were released into the Nauruan community be brought to Australia.”
The name of the employee who submitted the submission has been withheld from publication by the Senate committee.
In a response to the submission Wilson Security said it strongly rejected allegations of a coverup of abuse of asylum seekers, of corruption, and of the organisation of a team to spy on Hanson-Young.
But it acknowledged that “despite our best efforts, there are individuals that do not do the right thing from time to time”.
In relation to the allegations of surveillance of Hanson-Young, it conceded that it was “aware of individuals who attended the Menen hotel” in a capacity that was “not authorised” at the same time as Hanson-Young was present. It said the individuals involved were subject to disciplinary action.
It also conceded that it was aware of one incident where an employee had lied about their background in the Australian defence force.
Submissions to the inquiry have continued to offer stinging rebukes of the centre and the overall management by the Australian immigration department and private companies contracted at the centre.
A submission was also received to the inquiry from Caz Coleman, who is one of the most senior advisers to successive governments on asylum seeker policy.
She previously sat on a council to advise the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, on asylum seeker policy, but was not reappointed when the panel was reformed in May after it lay empty for six months.
Coleman previously worked as the transitional contract manager for the Salvation Army (TSA) in the early management of the centre.
She outlined strong concerns about the overall direction of the centre, and said there was a “significant systemic failure” to manage the centre and transition to the community in collaboration with the Nauru government.
Coleman said: “The result was a lack of trust, poor communication, poor collaboration and a strong perception that the failure of TSA to perform adequately heightened the risk to clients and staff in the centre. Rather than collaboration there were clear examples of competition, undermining of TSA staff by other service providers and also hostility and non-cooperation from TSA staff toward other service providers.”
She outlined that the recent allegations of sexual assault and harassment that arose from the review into allegations at the centre by Philip Moss indicated that there was significant animosity between private contractors on the island.
“There is no question that without a collaborative, respectful and trusted relationship between providers, risk increases in a centre like Nauru. Without this collaboration, communication decreases and the essential elements of managing difficult clients and group events involving self-harm or other harm are compromised,” she wrote.
She also reiterated strong concerns that have previously been raised about the “effective ban” on providing information to asylum seekers on Nauru at the direction of the immigration department.
“This directive by the department of immigration to all service providers effectively meant staff could not engage in responding to questions from clients about what was happening to them, what process were they likely to undergo, or respond in a timely way to the confusion that was inevitable amongst clients when there was a press release or other asylum-related news item from Australia,” she said.
The Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales submitted to the inquiry that Australia “appears to be in breach of its obligations to respect, protect and ensure the human rights of children within the Nauru RPC on a continuing basis”.
It called for the suspension of transfers of children to the Nauru detention centre until the Australian government could guarantee the safety of asylum seekers there.
The ongoing Senate inquiry is scheduled to hold further hearings to hear from the immigration department and former employees at the detention centre.
In an extraordinary submission to a Senate inquiry into serious allegations of abuse and conditions at the Australian-run Nauru detention centre, a former employee subcontracted to security provider Wilson Security accused the company of engaging in serious misconduct.
The employee raises serious allegations about the security company, including about staff fabricating military backgrounds to gain employment, discrimination against Australian guards and evidence of planned uses of excessive force against asylum seekers.
The submission also contains a disturbing account of Wilson Security guards being tasked to conduct surveillance of Hanson-Young during a recent visit to the island.
“When Senator Sarah Hanson-Young visited Nauru, Wilson Security organised a team from ERT [emergency response team] to spy on her while she was on Nauru. This included following her around the island while she was outside of the OPCs [offshore processing centres] and setting up an observation post to watch her room at the Menen hotel,” it says.
The call sign used by the guards to identify Hanson-Young in their surveillance was “raven”, according to the former employee.
The author of the submission also said they had seen a video from the body camera worn by a Wilson Security guard shortly before major unrest occurred at the centre on 19 July 2013. They said the video showed guards discussing the growing unrest and saying that if something happens they will go to a compound at the centre “and take cunts down”.
“From seeing this video it was obvious to me that these Wilson guards were planning to use unreasonable force and assault the asylum seekers even before the riot started,” the submission said.
It added: “I strongly recommend the centre is shut down, the remaining asylum seekers be processed onshore and all the refugees that were released into the Nauruan community be brought to Australia.”
The name of the employee who submitted the submission has been withheld from publication by the Senate committee.
In a response to the submission Wilson Security said it strongly rejected allegations of a coverup of abuse of asylum seekers, of corruption, and of the organisation of a team to spy on Hanson-Young.
But it acknowledged that “despite our best efforts, there are individuals that do not do the right thing from time to time”.
In relation to the allegations of surveillance of Hanson-Young, it conceded that it was “aware of individuals who attended the Menen hotel” in a capacity that was “not authorised” at the same time as Hanson-Young was present. It said the individuals involved were subject to disciplinary action.
It also conceded that it was aware of one incident where an employee had lied about their background in the Australian defence force.
Submissions to the inquiry have continued to offer stinging rebukes of the centre and the overall management by the Australian immigration department and private companies contracted at the centre.
A submission was also received to the inquiry from Caz Coleman, who is one of the most senior advisers to successive governments on asylum seeker policy.
She previously sat on a council to advise the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, on asylum seeker policy, but was not reappointed when the panel was reformed in May after it lay empty for six months.
Coleman previously worked as the transitional contract manager for the Salvation Army (TSA) in the early management of the centre.
She outlined strong concerns about the overall direction of the centre, and said there was a “significant systemic failure” to manage the centre and transition to the community in collaboration with the Nauru government.
Coleman said: “The result was a lack of trust, poor communication, poor collaboration and a strong perception that the failure of TSA to perform adequately heightened the risk to clients and staff in the centre. Rather than collaboration there were clear examples of competition, undermining of TSA staff by other service providers and also hostility and non-cooperation from TSA staff toward other service providers.”
She outlined that the recent allegations of sexual assault and harassment that arose from the review into allegations at the centre by Philip Moss indicated that there was significant animosity between private contractors on the island.
“There is no question that without a collaborative, respectful and trusted relationship between providers, risk increases in a centre like Nauru. Without this collaboration, communication decreases and the essential elements of managing difficult clients and group events involving self-harm or other harm are compromised,” she wrote.
She also reiterated strong concerns that have previously been raised about the “effective ban” on providing information to asylum seekers on Nauru at the direction of the immigration department.
“This directive by the department of immigration to all service providers effectively meant staff could not engage in responding to questions from clients about what was happening to them, what process were they likely to undergo, or respond in a timely way to the confusion that was inevitable amongst clients when there was a press release or other asylum-related news item from Australia,” she said.
The Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales submitted to the inquiry that Australia “appears to be in breach of its obligations to respect, protect and ensure the human rights of children within the Nauru RPC on a continuing basis”.
It called for the suspension of transfers of children to the Nauru detention centre until the Australian government could guarantee the safety of asylum seekers there.
The ongoing Senate inquiry is scheduled to hold further hearings to hear from the immigration department and former employees at the detention centre.
First, this is not a debate between people who want to keep Australia safe by stopping foreign fighters from returning and weaklings who want to lay out a welcome mat for those who want to come home after engaging in killings and beheadings. Everyone involved agrees on the importance of safety and national security.
Second, it’s not yet a debate about anything, because there is no legislation, nor any detail about what the government’s soon-to-be-produced legislation will say.
Nevertheless, the prime minister, Tony Abbott, asserts both those propositions when implying that the opposition is weak on terrorists unless it backs the “principle” of his yet-to-be-announced plan.
“We know, instinctively, that anyone who raises a gun or a knife to an Australian because of who we are has utterly forfeited any right to be considered one of us. That is what we believe. What do you believe? Do you want dual-national citizens to keep their citizenship?” he asked the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, during parliamentary question time.
Well, to start with, policy decisions are much better based on law rather than instinct.
There is no law, but what the government has said (and leaked) suggests the plan involves a minister – probably the immigration minister – revoking citizenship of foreign fighters on the basis of intelligence information, and for that decision to be subject to some kind of judicial review. It appears this law is aimed at keeping out of Australia people against whom there is insufficient evidence to lay charges under last year’s terrorism act. But we don’t know what evidence would be required, or who would review it.
Nor do we know who would be caught by it. Some of the backbenchers being encouraged by Abbott to mount a public campaign for wider measures that were blocked by cabinet – and instead inserted into the “discussion paper” – reckon it could cover doctors or nurses, but some say only fighters. Last year’s terrorism laws cover anyone fighting for any of the complex web of subgroups in the Syrian civil war, no matter which group they are fighting with. If that is the benchmark then those fighting with the Kurdish peshmerga could lose citizenship, even though they are fighting against Isis, not with it.
And we don’t know whether it would be constitutional. Greg Craven, vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, reckons giving a minister, rather than the courts, the power to impose the penalty is “irredeemably unconstitutional … [and] mocks the separation of powers”. He says it would be “swatted down like a bug by the high court”.
Another constitutional law expert, George Williams, told Guardian Australia he was less willing to make a definitive prediction about what the high court would say, but says there would be “significant constitutional problems with giving the decision-making power to a minister”.
“Ministers cannot usurp judicial powers … What they are proposing runs counter to basic and fundamental principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers. It is proposing that a minister be given powers that usurp the role of the courts.
“Just because it might be hard to get enough evidence for a conviction does not mean you can work around the rule of law. I can’t see how they can do this if they bypass the courts.”
Despite deep concerns about all these questions within Labor, Shorten – apparently concerned that he would indeed look weak on terrorism – did his best on Thursday to suggest Labor was on board, without quite saying so.
Labor gave “in principle support” for stripping dual citizens of their citizenship, he said, but added “we’ve got concerns of ministers just having those sort of powers without a court process, you know, that’s a question mark, that’s a new development”. That would also appear to be the nub of the government policy to which he had just offered “in principle support”.
The only person really making sense this week was Malcolm Turnbull, the communications minister, who made the radical suggestion that the citizenship debate be guided by the rule of law, rather than “bravado”.
“Honest people, knowledgeable people, really well-informed people, can have very different views about what the right measures are for national security, and can have very different views about the right balance between, say, citizenship and national security,” he said. “It’s not good enough that laws simply be tough. This is not a sort of bravado issue. They’ve got to be the right laws; you’ve got to get the measure right.”
And that raises complicated implementation questions, which cannot be neatly summarised into the ridiculous binary of being for or against the perpetrators of beheadings. National security is too important for that kind of cartoon analysis. So is the democratic system we are fighting to protect.