# Serco’s ugly legacy in Australia’s immigration detention system

An episode of [7am](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1461999702), 19 Sep 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/62723a1f-3e96-4fc4-882c-b25e0181da4d/746a8a7d-43b4-4efe-8d8a-b4c9004bf29f/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=70f29d90-2a63-48aa-bf8f-b25e0181da70

Last year, the company that ran Australia’s immigration detention network for over a decade, British conglomerate Serco, lost its contract, but not before helping build what’s been called one of the world’s ‘most extreme and secretive’ detention regimes. 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 1,600 – 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, journalist Denham Sadler on the private companies paid billions to run Australia’s immigration detention system – and the warnings that were there before MTC took over. This episode was originally published in January, 2025. If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram Guest: Journalist Denham Sadler Photo: AP Photo/Rick Rycroft See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to 7am. At the
[0:09] Speaker 1: start of last year, Serco was about to hand over
[0:11] Speaker 1: the contract to run Australia's immigration detention centres. The question
[0:15] Speaker 1: at the time was whether its replacement, American private prison
[0:18] Speaker 1: operator MTC, would be any better. 18 months later, we
[0:23] Speaker 1: have an answer. Recording incidents across the detention network have
[0:27] Speaker 1: more than doubled, from almost 800 to over 1,600. since
[0:31] Speaker 1: MTC took over. At the same time, Australia's offshore detention
[0:35] Speaker 1: system on Nauru is expanding. Hundreds more people are being
[0:39] Speaker 1: transferred to the island and the Albanese government has announced
[0:41] Speaker 1: plans to expand immigration detention as part of its crackdown
[0:45] Speaker 1: on visa overstayers. Today, we're returning to a conversation with
[0:49] Speaker 1: journalist Denham Sadler about the private companies paid billions to
[0:53] Speaker 1: run Australia's immigration detention system and the warnings that were
[0:56] Speaker 1: there before MTC took over. It's Sunday, September 20. This
[1:04] Speaker 1: episode first aired in January 2025. Dan, you've been reporting
[1:10] Speaker 1: on Australia's immigration detention system for 10 years now. So
[1:15] Speaker 1: can you tell me about Serco?
[1:17] Speaker 2: Serco is this massive conglomerate based in the UK. They
[1:20] Speaker 2: have a market cap of about $ 3 billion and they're
[1:23] Speaker 2: listed on the London Stock Exchange. And they basically try
[1:27] Speaker 2: and win any work that the government wants to outsource.
[1:30] Speaker 2: What does a career with Serco look like? It's secure
[1:33] Speaker 2: employment where training's provided. So they operate across defence, they
[1:38] Speaker 2: operate in the space sector, they run cleaning services and
[1:41] Speaker 2: they have a massive presence in the justice space. So
[1:44] Speaker 2: they run prisons and they run immigration detention centres. Registered nurses,
[1:49] Speaker 2: corrective case officers, security and intelligence officers, vocational trainers, trade
[1:54] Speaker 2: instructors and so much more.
[1:56] Speaker 3: It's real jobs for real people.
[1:59] Speaker 2: And they've been running the immigration detention centres or the
[2:02] Speaker 2: onshore centres in Australia for about 15 years. Serco has
[2:08] Speaker 2: this reputation across the years for being basically akin to prison,
[2:12] Speaker 2: very highly securitised, a focus on kind of safety and
[2:17] Speaker 2: security over anything else, over the wellbeing of people, and
[2:20] Speaker 2: that's what a lot of Advocates and people that have
[2:22] Speaker 2: been through the system have said as well that it's
[2:24] Speaker 2: led to a lot of issues with how people are treated. Today,
[2:26] Speaker 2: the Crikey website released a manual which has been given
[2:30] Speaker 2: out by Serco to the people it employs to work
[2:34] Speaker 2: at its immigration detention centre.
[2:35] Speaker 4: It is a last resort, as it says, getting into a, quote,
[2:39] Speaker 4: fight with asylum seekers. But if you read through the document,
[2:42] Speaker 4: there's quite a few use of force issues. There's instructions
[2:47] Speaker 4: on how to kick people. punch, jab fingers into detainee limbs,
[2:52] Speaker 4: pressure point tactics, which are obviously very controversial.
[2:55] Speaker 2: There's been a lot of scandals and there's been incidents
[2:58] Speaker 2: of self-harm, there's been a lot of allegations of human
[3:00] Speaker 2: rights abuses.
[3:01] Speaker 5: Professor Louise Newman from Monash University told the Joint Select
[3:05] Speaker 5: Committee into the Immigration Detention Centre Network there's no medical
[3:09] Speaker 5: review process for the use of solitary confinement in detention centres.
[3:14] Speaker 5: She said some staff at the centres, run by the
[3:16] Speaker 5: company Serco, even carry knives to cut down asylum seekers
[3:21] Speaker 5: who try to hang themselves.
[3:22] Speaker 2: And a lot of concerns about how people are treated
[3:25] Speaker 2: in these centres.
[3:26] Speaker 1: And how much money have they racked in from the
[3:28] Speaker 1: Commonwealth over the years?
[3:29] Speaker 2: They've received more than $ 7. 5 billion across about 15 years
[3:33] Speaker 2: of contracts. So that's across two contracts, and one of
[3:36] Speaker 2: those contracts was extended many, many times. But, yeah, it's
[3:40] Speaker 2: very lucrative business. They've won a lot of money.
[3:43] Speaker 1: OK, so that's a lot of money over that time.
[3:46] Speaker 1: Before we get into the detail about some of those
[3:48] Speaker 1: incidents and scandals you mentioned, what was it like before
[3:51] Speaker 1: Serco came into the picture? How much has the immigration
[3:54] Speaker 1: detention system changed?
[3:56] Speaker 2: This was something that surprised me a bit. Some advocates
[3:59] Speaker 2: I talk to remember kind of 20 years ago, you
[4:02] Speaker 2: could go in on a weekend and take someone out
[4:03] Speaker 2: of the network and take them to the beach or
[4:05] Speaker 2: take them to a church service. And so there was
[4:08] Speaker 2: a different level of security to the system. But across
[4:12] Speaker 2: that time, we've obviously seen Seeking asylum and immigration becomes
[4:16] Speaker 2: such a large political issue and it's become a national
[4:18] Speaker 2: security issue and we've seen the rise in offshore detention
[4:22] Speaker 2: and everything like that as well that's transformed it into
[4:24] Speaker 2: one that is much closer to a prison network and
[4:27] Speaker 2: with a focus on securitisation.
[4:29] Speaker 1: So what's the hardline approach meant for people in detention?
[4:34] Speaker 1: What is it like to be in detention?
[4:36] Speaker 2: So one of the men I spoke to for the story,
[4:38] Speaker 2: his name's Mustafa Azimutabar. And he's known as Moz. And
[4:43] Speaker 2: he's a Kurdish asylum seeker who was eventually medivaced to
[4:46] Speaker 2: Australia as part of that cohort of asylum seekers that
[4:49] Speaker 2: were taken to Australia for medical means. And throughout this time,
[4:53] Speaker 2: he also has been recognized as a refugee, so a
[4:55] Speaker 2: legitimate refugee. And then after being medivaced, he spent about
[4:59] Speaker 2: 14 months in hotel detention. Serco also operate these hotels
[5:03] Speaker 2: that serve as detention centers.
[5:05] Speaker 6: The government used the hotel as a prison to lock
[5:10] Speaker 6: me up. And the situation made me more sick. My
[5:18] Speaker 6: body is trembling when I think about the time I
[5:21] Speaker 6: was in those hotels.
[5:23] Speaker 2: He spoke to me of this regime where Serco basically
[5:26] Speaker 2: just controlled his entire life, which was restricted to this
[5:29] Speaker 2: tiny hotel room where you could barely open the windows.
[5:32] Speaker 6: Definitely it was worse than Manus Island. I was locked
[5:36] Speaker 6: up on the third floor of the Mantra and the
[5:40] Speaker 6: park prison. I spent 23 hours a day in a room.
[5:45] Speaker 6: Officers 10 times a day came to the room.
[5:48] Speaker 2: And one of the biggest things he talks about a
[5:51] Speaker 2: lot about the trauma is that he was just pat
[5:53] Speaker 2: searched constantly by the Serco guards. He says across his
[5:56] Speaker 2: time in the hotel, he was pat searched about 400 times.
[6:00] Speaker 2: And he said this has a really huge impact on
[6:03] Speaker 2: him and his mental health and was very triggering. And
[6:06] Speaker 2: there was another case that the Justice and Equity Center
[6:09] Speaker 2: settled with Serco and the government in 2023, and that
[6:12] Speaker 2: related to an asylum seeker called Yasir. And he was
[6:17] Speaker 2: forced to wear handcuffs every time he left the detention
[6:19] Speaker 2: center he was being held at to access medical treatment.
[6:23] Speaker 2: Similar to Moz, just says this had a very triggering
[6:26] Speaker 2: effect on him and was very traumatising and did impact
[6:29] Speaker 2: his ability to access that medical treatment as well. And
[6:33] Speaker 2: these incidents definitely aren't isolated cases as well. So we do,
[6:36] Speaker 2: thanks to the parliamentary system, we have a bit of
[6:39] Speaker 2: information on how rife these things are. And some stats
[6:43] Speaker 2: released by Home Affairs shows there are actually more than
[6:46] Speaker 2: 15 incidents of use of force in on an average
[6:49] Speaker 2: day in detention. And this use of force includes the
[6:51] Speaker 2: use of handcuffs. And there was also at least one
[6:54] Speaker 2: incident of self-harm on an average day as well across
[6:57] Speaker 2: the last five years.
[6:59] Speaker 4: Right.
[6:59] Speaker 1: And so looking back on Serco's reign, advocates and former detainees,
[7:03] Speaker 1: the people you've spoken to, are they optimistic that it's over?
[7:08] Speaker 2: Nearly every advocate I talk to that has fought Serco
[7:11] Speaker 2: over these years and represented people in the detention centres
[7:14] Speaker 2: are They're definitely not upset to be seen in the
[7:16] Speaker 2: back of Serco, but there's no positivity at all that
[7:19] Speaker 2: anything's going to change when the government has brought in
[7:22] Speaker 2: just another prison provider, another company that has a reputation
[7:26] Speaker 2: for certain conditions in their centres. Green Senator David Shoebridge
[7:30] Speaker 2: told me that he thinks it's the most extreme and
[7:32] Speaker 2: secretive detention regime in the world and I think everyone's
[7:36] Speaker 2: still pretty concerned that not much is going to change
[7:39] Speaker 2: in the system.
[7:42] Speaker 1: After the break... Why the government broke with Serco. Then
[7:52] Speaker 1: the federal government has opted not to renew Serco's contract
[7:55] Speaker 1: for running Australia's immigration detention system. Do we know why
[8:00] Speaker 1: they made that decision?
[8:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really interesting. I think a lot of
[8:03] Speaker 2: people I talk to that are very involved in the
[8:06] Speaker 2: space and how it operates were quite surprised that Serco
[8:08] Speaker 2: lost the contract. Potentially... there were just too many incidents
[8:13] Speaker 2: over time and they had a chance because the contract
[8:15] Speaker 2: did end. They haven't scrapped the contract. It did come
[8:17] Speaker 2: to an end and they've found a new provider that
[8:19] Speaker 2: they took that chance to bring someone else in. They
[8:22] Speaker 2: did reply to some questions for me. They didn't really
[8:25] Speaker 2: address any of the questions I put to them about
[8:27] Speaker 2: Serco's track record. And the fact that it is a
[8:31] Speaker 2: private operator running it just makes it a bit harder
[8:33] Speaker 2: to access information. There's an added layer of secrecy when
[8:36] Speaker 2: they can claim commercial confidence on some of these elements
[8:39] Speaker 2: of the contract and hide that from the public.
[8:42] Speaker 1: So what do we know about the new company that
[8:44] Speaker 1: will take over?
[8:45] Speaker 2: So the new providers are a subsidiary of a company
[8:48] Speaker 2: called Management and Training Corporation. So they're a US-based company
[8:52] Speaker 2: and they run a number of for-profit prisons in the
[8:55] Speaker 2: United States as well as immigration detention centres.
[8:58] Speaker 3: Riots took hold of a prison in Arizona.
[9:01] Speaker 7: 16 people were injured, 1,200 inmates were evacuated. much of
[9:06] Speaker 7: the facility itself was left uninhabitable.
[9:08] Speaker 2: And there's been a lot of incidents reported on already.
[9:10] Speaker 3: Their targeted destruction of MTC property strongly suggested the riots
[9:15] Speaker 3: were brought on by inmate dissatisfaction with the way the
[9:18] Speaker 3: prison was operated. There was a culture of disorganization, disengagement,
[9:22] Speaker 3: and disregard for Department of Corrections policies.
[9:25] Speaker 2: And a lot of legal suits that have kind of
[9:26] Speaker 2: shed a bit of light on what the conditions are
[9:28] Speaker 2: like in their centers, and it doesn't paint a very
[9:30] Speaker 2: nice picture.
[9:31] Speaker 8: The ACLU published its report last year. In addition to
[9:35] Speaker 8: accounts of overcrowding and squalid conditions inside the tent city,
[9:39] Speaker 8: inmates complained of excessive use of solitary confinement, a lack
[9:42] Speaker 8: of activities to occupy their time, and inadequate medical treatment.
[9:46] Speaker 2: There's a lot of allegations of mistreatment. There's a lot
[9:49] Speaker 2: of concerns about access to health care and the provision
[9:52] Speaker 2: of health care to people under their care.
[9:54] Speaker 1: The toilets would back up and raw sewage would overflow
[9:59] Speaker 1: into the Kevlar tents.
[10:00] Speaker 2: A lot of this has come out. Across the years,
[10:03] Speaker 2: it's nothing new and the federal government's definitely aware of it.
[10:06] Speaker 8: An MTC spokesman emailed, we completely disagree with the anecdotal
[10:09] Speaker 8: allegations in the ACLU report.
[10:11] Speaker 2: So while the government is getting rid of Serco from
[10:14] Speaker 2: the immigration detention network, there aren't any real hopes that
[10:16] Speaker 2: there's going to be a big change to the approach
[10:18] Speaker 2: because they're bringing in another company that's known for running
[10:20] Speaker 2: prisons in this way.
[10:23] Speaker 1: So they signed a contract. Do we know how much
[10:25] Speaker 1: that was for and over what period?
[10:27] Speaker 2: So the contract they've won runs for five years and
[10:30] Speaker 2: it's worth more than $ 2 billion. So it's another massive
[10:33] Speaker 2: contract running for a long time and they're operating all
[10:35] Speaker 2: the same facilities that Serco were. So they're taking over
[10:39] Speaker 2: from midway through this year. I think it's important to
[10:41] Speaker 2: note that Serco still has a massive presence in Australia.
[10:45] Speaker 2: They win a lot of government contracts and even in
[10:47] Speaker 2: the justice space, they still run two really big prisons
[10:50] Speaker 2: in Australia on massive contracts. So they run the Acacia
[10:54] Speaker 2: Prison in Western Australia and the Clarence Prison in New
[10:57] Speaker 2: South Wales, which is fairly new and it's the biggest
[11:00] Speaker 2: prison in Australia now. So they still have a massive presence,
[11:03] Speaker 2: even in justice and across everything else as well.
[11:06] Speaker 1: And just finally, you've been covering these issues for a
[11:09] Speaker 1: long time now. Just broadly, what do we need to
[11:13] Speaker 1: do with our detention and immigration system to change the
[11:17] Speaker 1: way we approach prison? asylum seekers and those on visas?
[11:21] Speaker 2: There's a lot we need to do. But I think
[11:23] Speaker 2: when it comes to these centres, I think it's the
[11:25] Speaker 2: approach to these people as criminals and that these places
[11:29] Speaker 2: are serving as another prison. If they're going to exist
[11:32] Speaker 2: at all, they're not meant to be places where people
[11:34] Speaker 2: spend a lot of time, but there are people spending
[11:36] Speaker 2: years there. So that needs to be looked at. And
[11:38] Speaker 2: I think they're people that either have served a prison
[11:41] Speaker 2: sentence or haven't received any sentence, so they shouldn't be
[11:44] Speaker 2: treated like criminals. So I think that whole approach of
[11:47] Speaker 2: security above all else needs to be addressed. There's obviously
[11:52] Speaker 2: huge problems with offshore processing and how people are treated
[11:55] Speaker 2: on Nauru. There's still people on Nauru. So that needs
[11:58] Speaker 2: to be addressed and those people need to be taken
[12:00] Speaker 2: off there. And I think it's a wider issue of
[12:03] Speaker 2: how we approach immigration and taking a more human rights
[12:07] Speaker 2: focused approach versus this treating as a national security issue
[12:11] Speaker 2: or a political tool that can be used to kind
[12:13] Speaker 2: of win votes.
[12:15] Speaker 1: Dan M, thanks for coming in. Thanks so much for
[12:17] Speaker 1: your time.
[12:18] Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
[12:20] Speaker 1: In a statement to the Saturday paper, Serco said, We
[12:23] Speaker 1: strongly reject the assertions about Serco's operations. Serco's commitment to
[12:28] Speaker 1: the rights and welfare of detainees in our care has
[12:31] Speaker 1: remained consistent since 2009. Tomorrow on 7am, space has been
[12:44] Speaker 1: militarised for decades, but now the US has confirmed it
[12:47] Speaker 1: has weapons in orbit. So what does that actually mean?
[12:50] Speaker 1: And are we entering a new era where the opening
[12:52] Speaker 1: moves of a war could happen hundreds of kilometres above us?
[12:57] Speaker 7: What certainly I think the Americans are anticipating is that
[13:00] Speaker 7: in the next war, at the outset of that war
[13:03] Speaker 7: or even prior to that war, you will see what's
[13:06] Speaker 7: known as grey zone operations in space where adversaries utilise
[13:10] Speaker 7: counter space capabilities to try and attack our critical space systems.
[13:14] Speaker 7: So the Americans want to be ready for that. It's
[13:17] Speaker 7: highlighting the risk that space war will happen in the
[13:20] Speaker 7: next war.
[13:21] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James. Thanks for listening.

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