The company contracted to provide support for refugees and asylum seekers in Nauru will leave the island before Christmas, after deciding it would not retender for the contract.
According to sources in Nauru, representatives of Connect Settlement Services informed all employees — including Nauruans and expatriate staff — and refugees at a meeting yesterday.
A company spokesman confirmed that it would leave Nauru and would not tender for any further contracts, but declined to comment further.
Photo: AFP
It is understood that the employees were told the services required on Nauru were beyond the capabilities of a settlement agency.
The agency is believed to have consistently raised concerns about insufficient mental healthcare and child protection services in the Pacific Island nation.
Some senior company executives are believed to have flown in for the meeting.
It was not known who will take over on Dec. 7, when the contract ends. The organization took over after Save the Children left early last year.
Connect Settlement Services is the latest in a string of offshore processing contractors to withdraw from the Australian-run program.
Ferrovial, a Spanish firm that owns the detention centers’ major contractor, Broadspectrum, in April announced that it would abandon offshore detention when its contract ends in October next year.
It had intended to leave Nauru and Manus in February next year, but the Australian government unilaterally exercised an option to extend its term by eight months.
Broadspectrum was forced to change its name from Transfield Services in September last year after the owners of its parent company withdrew permission for it use the Transfield name, saying they wanted to distance themselves from offshore detention.
Broadspectrum was then sold to Ferrovial at a significant discount.
Earlier this month Wilson Security announced it would also leave offshore detention “in line with Broadspectrum’s future intentions ... and will not tender for any further offshore detention services.”
Last week an report from the Australian National Audit Office said that the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection had wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on offshore detention because it failed to comply with Commonwealth procurement standards.
The report identified “serious and persistent deficiencies” in the department’s management of the contracts, including “significant skill and capability gaps” among staff and “persistent shortcomings” in areas ranging from recordkeeping to the ability to assess value for money.
“Procurement is core business for Commonwealth entities and the deficiencies have resulted in higher than necessary expense for taxpayers and significant reputational risks for the Australian government and [the department],” it said.
Shen Narayanasamy, human rights director at GetUp and director of No Business in Abuse, said the Australian government now had no major entity publicly willing to operate its offshore detention camps, or resettlement programs in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
“The global business world has spoken: the reputational, financial and legal risks facing any entity involved in the abusive offshore regime are simply too great. Despite the estimate of [A]$5.6 billion [US$4.23 billion] in Australian taxpayers’ funds to be spent propping up this regime, no company wants a bar of it.”
Narayanasamy said that the government’s offshore detention policy had failed and all of the people held on the islands must now be brought to Australia to be properly processed.
“The camps are officially in chaos. The government is throwing billions of dollars at this problem, but it doesn’t make it go away,” Narayanasamy said.
Nauru and the offshore detention center on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island have been plagued by controversy, as well as allegations and instances of assault, abuse, trauma and mental illness.
The UN, other national governments, numerous international human-rights bodies and dozens of doctors and staff members from inside the camps have condemned the offshore processing regime and called for the Australian government to end the practice.
On Thursday last week Australian Minister of Immigration Peter Dutton told a Canberra-based think tank that the offshore processing relationship with Nauru would last “for decades.”
He acknowledged problems with the camps, but defended the system and again criticized asylum-seeker advocates.
“Our detractors do no service to anyone by trading in false hope and speaking in disingenuous terms,” Dutton said. “Their entreaties to a different approach offer nothing but a holiday from history and ignore the fundamental reality that secure borders require policies that are tough and fair.”
“If they are not tough, they will not be fair to those desperate people waiting in camps,” he said. “And they will not be morally fair to those who will again be lured to the murky depths by the siren call of people smugglers.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number