Abbott Government advertising for new contractors at Nauru & Manus detention centres

In early 2014 the Abbott Government extended the Transfield Services* contract to cover both Nauru and Manus Island centres and this contract was reportedly worth $1.2 billion.

In February 2014 an asylum seeker was murdered in the Manus detention centre.

In May 2014 the Cornall report into the incident leading to his death and serious injury to other asylum seekers was handed to the government.

By November 2014 the Abbott Government was in possession of the Australian Human Rights Commission report on the treatment of children in these centres.

In September 2014 it was reported that inadequate medical attention on Manus Island resulted in the eventual brain death of an asylum seeker in a Brisbane hospital.

In December 2014 it was announced that International Health and Medical Services (IHMS) had received a contract renewal, to provide medical services on Nauru and Manus Island worth around $900 million over five years.

By January 2015 the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection had begun advertising these contracts on AusTender:

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection invites interested parties to submit Tenders in accordance with this Request for Tender for the provision of services in Regional Processing Countries. 

Services will be required to be delivered within the Regional Processing Centres on Nauru and Manus, Papua New Guinea, as well as limited services within the local communities of Nauru and Manus to support settlement activities for Refugees.  Potential suppliers will be able to bid for one or both service categories listed below.

The Request for Tender seeks responses in relation to two service categories. 

Service Category 1. Health Services, which includes:
(a) Health screening and assessment processes;
(b) Health promotion and education programmes;
(c) Management of mental health and public health risks;
(d) Medical escort services;
(e) Supply and management of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals;
(f) Environmental health services;
(g) Health advice services;
(h) Outreach health services; and
(i) Telehealth.

Service Category 2. Garrison and Welfare Services, which include:
(a) Programmes and Activities;
(b) Management of property of Transferees;
(c) Communication management;
(d) Management and maintenance of assets;
(e) Cleaning;
(f) Security and Incident Management;
(g) Catering;
(h) Environmental management;
(i) Logistics;
(j) Personnel accommodation;
(k) Transport and Escort;
(l) Complaints Management;
(m) Individual management of Transferees;
(n) Complaints and request management;
(o) Specialist care for vulnerable cohorts (infants, families with children, minors);
(p) Independent observer services; 
(q) Communication Management; and
(r) Business Services.

Further details of the Services are set out in the RFT documentation.

The current contracts for garrison, welfare and health services on Nauru and Manus expire on 31 October 2015.  New arrangements must be in place and fully transitioned by this date.

The euphemistically named regional processing centres are requiring new contractors it seems.

In March 2015 the Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment was released and quickly followed by the Moss report on sexual abuse and sexual assault allegations at the Nauru detention centre.

So which company or companies are walking away from any further engagement in the Abbott Government's overseas detention centres?

  

Is it IHMS (or possibly a subcontractor) and Transfield's subcontractor Wilson Security? 

Has corporate greed finally been overridden by a need to protect their brands?

Or are the aforementioned contract details merely being advertised due to competitive tender requirements and the usual suspects will still be in place after October this year. 

* Transfield Services is in the process of rebranding the company as Transfield Holdings has served notice on the company to cease using the trademarked Transfield name and logo.
Industry super fund HESTA appears to be in the process of divesting itself of shares in Transfield Services in response to pressure from a section of its membership.

Destroy The Joint is counting dead women - Part Three

      

Destroy The Joint

Since 1 January 2015 twenty-eight women have died in violent incidents. That equates to two women killed each week so far this year.

Destroy The Joint keeps a register of these deaths here.

ACOSS: Drop unfair plan to lower pension indexation, reform super and pension assets test instead

Australian Council Of Social Services, 1 April 2015:

Drop unfair plan to lower pension indexation, reform super and pension assets test instead

The Australian Council of Social Service today issued a call to the Federal Parliament to reject the plan to lower the Indexation of pensions that would severely impact all pensioners, and instead focus on eligibility for the part-pension and reforming the unfair retirement incomes system, including superannuation tax concessions.

The decision to reduce the Indexation of pensions in the last Budget came as a great surprise to most of us, especially to pensioners. It would effectively lead to people on pensions, including older people, sole parents, and people with disabilities, falling behind community living standards," said ACOSS CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie.

"We know these groups are already struggling to get by on a daily basis and if this measure goes ahead, they would lose as much as $80 per week over the next 10 years based on modelling by the National Commission of Audit.

"This would be a massive cut to the income of some of the most vulnerable people in our community, who simply could not afford to absorb it. The last thing we should be doing is reducing indexation of payments for pensioners down to the inadequate indexation which is still in place for people struggling to survive on Allowances, including young people on Youth Allowance (just $30 a day) and unemployed people on Newstart (just $37 a day). Two thirds of people on Newstart and Youth Allowance have been on these payments for over a year.

"Indexation to wages should be maintained for older people but also for sole parents and people with disability who already experience high levels of income poverty. Indexation for all basic income support payments -both Pensions and Allowances - should be linked to wages if they are to be enough for people to live with some dignity.

"We urge the government, opposition parties and crossbenchers to work together on alternative solutions to ensure the sustainability of retirement incomes system into the future. This must include reform to better target the Age Pension to those who need it and to superannuation tax concessions as part of the tax review.

"ACOSS has put forward sound and fair recommendations to this end, including reducing the current threshold that allows couples with as much as $1.1 million dollars in assets on top of the family home to qualify for a Part Pension.

"We also support the Government's move to abolish the Seniors Supplement, which is available to people who are not eligible for the Aged Pension because they are in a much better financial position than most.

"The Supplement extends to older people who are disqualified from the Age Pension due to the assets test - which means for example, it would go to couples with assets in excess of $1 million apart from the family home. By excluding superannuation income from the income test for existing recipients, it also extends to people with significant superannuation incomes.

"A couple could have a million dollars in a superannuation fund paying them an income of $100,000 a year in addition to their assets and still receive the supplement.

"We strongly support the need for an adequate safety net system to ensure that people are supported when they fall into hard times. However, this supplement of $858 each year for singles and $1,295 for couples, simply cannot be justified," Dr Goldie said.....

1. Tighten the Age Pension assets test 
• Reduce the assets test free area for home owners to $100,000 for singles and $150,000 for couples, and increase the taper rate for both home owners and non-home owners from $1.50 per $1,000 of additional assets to $2 per $1,000, so that the cut out point for the part pension for couples is reduced from $1.1 million in assets besides the family home to $794,250 in assets besides the family home - Savings: $1,350 million ($1,450 million in 2016-17).

2. Abolish the Seniors Supplement
• Abolish the Seniors Supplement (available to people who do not qualify for the Age Pension due to their income and assets) from 1 July 2015 leaving the Pension Supplement in place for Age Pensioners - Savings: $240 million ($250 million in 2016-1).

3. Reform Superannuation system 
• Increase the preservation age so that it corresponds to the Age Pension access age by 2027 - with early access arrangements for people with disabilities and caring roles that effectively require them to retire earlier. May include allowing access from age 55 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and people whose disabilities or caring roles would ordinarily qualify them for certain social security payments (such as the Disability Support Pension or Carer Payment) or by allowing withdrawals earlier than 55 for any purpose up to modest annual and lifetime limits - Revenue neutral.
• Replace existing tax concessions for superannuation contributions with a simpler taxation structure, in which employer contributions are taxed at the employee's marginal tax rate and a capped superannuation rebate is paid into employee's superannuation accounts - Revenue neutral.
• Extend the 15% tax rate on superannuation fund earnings to accounts in the ‘pension phase', in three annual steps of 5% each year - Saving $300 million in 2016-17.
• Stem the avoidance of personal income tax by individuals over 55 years of age who ‘churn' their earnings through superannuation accounts: From 1 July 2016, reduce the annual cap for concessional contributions by $1 for every dollar withdrawn from a superannuation account in the same year by a fund member - Saving $500 million in 2016-17.

Abbott Government has given permission for Dutch-owned Seafish Tasmania and Parlevliet En Van Der Plas Beheer B.V. to bring a super trawler into Australian waters

FV Dirk Dirk now known as the Geelong Star

Photo: www.maritimetraffic.com

The FV Dirk Dirk owned by Parlevliet & Van der Plas Beheer B.V. based in The Netherlands, now rebranded the Geelong Star, is currently in or near the port of Albany in West Australia.

This refrigerated trawler has a gross tonnage of 3,181 and is 95.18 metres long, 14.50 metres wide, with a service speed of 14,000 knots.

It has freezing and holding capacities of 230,000 kg fish/day (230 tonne) and 91,000 cartons respectively.

The newly re-named Geelong Star comes from the same fishing fleet as the notorious FV Margiris which Seafish Tasmania and Parlevliet En Van Der Plas temporarily rebranded the Abel Tasman during its unsuccessful 2012 to 2014 attempt to fish these waters.

The Geelong Star is reportedly expected to take up to 16,500 tonne of fish during its initial trawl this year – only 2,000 tonne less than the larger super trawler Margiris was hoping to take in 2012. 

The Geelong Star’s maximum quota is an est. 47 per cent of the 2014-15 total allowable catch.

The Abbott Government intends to allow this ship to fish the Australian Small Pelagic Fishery which extends from the Queensland/New South Wales border, typically outside 3 nautical miles, around southern Australia to a line at latitude 31° south (near Lancelin, north of Perth).

In what appears to be a deliberate attempt to politically deceive, the government issued a media release on 12 February 2015 which ignored the antecedents of Seafish Tasmania.

Calling this company “Australian” when in fact it is a company merely registered in Australia but wholly-owned by Silver Pit B.V. a subsidiary of Parlevliet & Van der Plas which also has branches in the U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Lithuania.

The media release also ignores the fact that it is highly likely that the entire catch will be exported, so that there will be little benefit from the vessel's fish catch flowing to Australia either economically or as available food stock.

As for the potential for adverse environmental impacts – I doubt whether the Minister for Agriculture and Nationals MP for New England, Barnaby Joyce, has given more than a passing thought to this issue.

He did not release the REPORT OF THE EXPERT PANEL ON A DECLARED COMMERCIAL FISHING ACTIVITY: FINAL (SMALL PELAGIC FISHERY) DECLARATION 2012 until October 2014 and then with little fanfare.

Unfortunately this report cannot rule out localised depletion of fish stocks given the number of variables in play when a large refrigerated trawler is operating within a fishery.

In 2012 the then Labor Member for Page, Janelle Saffin, stood up for the North Coast region and successfully lobbied to keep the Margiris out of Australian waters.

Based on his record to date, it would be foolish of anyone to expect the current Nationals MP for Page, Kevin Hogan, to stir himself.

Fishing fleets based on the NSW North Coast from the Clarence to the NSW-QLD border have been working towards achieving sustainable fishing practices and they bring millions of dollars annually to the regional economy, so it is disappointing to see the Abbott Government allowing a foreign-owned company to trawl in the NSW fishing zone when it has a history of breaching conditions* imposed by host countries.

* Dutch pelagic group Parlevliet & van der Plas (P&P) fined €105,000 in an Irish Court in 2014.
* In 2012 Parlevliet & Van Der Plasfined fined €595,000 in Cherbourg after the Maartje Theadora was stopped with €1.2million of illegally-caught fish in freezers.

* Parlevliet & Van der Plas FV Jan Maria alleged to have dumped almost 1.6 thousand tonnes herring at sea to make room for fish with a higher market value (highgrading) in 2012-2013.

UPDATE

This was a Seafish Tasmania spokesperson in The Advocate on 3 April 2014:

Mr Geen said he expected his Dutch partners Parlevliet & Van der Plas BV involved in the proposed super trawler,  earmarked to operate out of Devonport and create about 45 jobs while fishing the Great Australian Bight,  would still be keen to pursue the venture pending a successful outcome on the court and expert review hurdles.

"The only thing that's clear is we would like the opportunity to catch our quota,'' Mr Geen said.

"We need to talk to our Dutch partners.

"We have not called them for a long time but as far as I'm aware they are still interested.

Note how carefully crafted is this misleading impression that Seafish Tasmania is an independent company in partnership with the Parlevliet & Van der Plas and not owned by this Dutch company.

When the NSW gas industry comes to visit: "They say ignorance is bliss and little did I know that life as I knew it was about to change forever"

How it starts – with a knock at the door.

Excerpt from 2011 submission, by northern NSW beef cattle and mixed broad acre farmers Brenden Smith and Angie Smith to the NSW Legislative Council Inquiry Into Coal Seam Gas:

Our farms are situated in PEL 470 and we were approached by a representative from Planet Gas to put an exploration well on one of our properties. We were told it was only one well and it was nothing to worry about.  After further investigations, we found out it was going to be a series of wells with a pumping station on a neighbouring farm to join to a pipeline to take the gas to a major pipeline connecting to Gladstone in the North and Wellington and Newcastle in the south.  It seems all this had been arranged without notifying landholders or local councils. How can this be allowed to happen?  

What one community did about it.

Excerpt from a guest post in 1 Million Women by Angie Smith:

Prior to 2010 I didn't even know what coal seam gas was or that it was embedded in the coal seams deep under our farm. I had no idea what a Petroleum Exploration Licence was let alone that there was one covering our district called PEL470. Hydraulic fracturing was another language.

They say ignorance is bliss and little did I know that life as I knew it was about to change forever.

After a visit from a representative from Planet Gas seeking permission to drill a core hole on our land life went into overdrive. Being a fourth generation farmer I descend from a long line of agriculturalists. My husband is a successful, passionate farmer and our three children, although at university and school, are heavily involved with the running of our family farm. The land is not only in our blood but our hearts as well. Mining companies and governments thought they could establish a gas industry in some of the richest farming land in Australia. They didn't bank on the power of people.

Life became very different from the usual day to day running of the farm and family. Night reading became Petroleum Onshore Act 1991 and NSW Government Draft Strategic Regional Land use Plan. Neighbours were alerted and meetings were planned and email lists collated. Meetings with local, state and federal MP's were attended. Days spent at the legislative Council Inquiries. Letters were written.

Politicians from all parties came to our home to discuss CSG. The phone rang constantly. Involvement on an advisory committee enabled travel to Emerald, Springsure, Toowoomba, Chinchilla, Dalby, Gunnedah, Narrabri and Brisbane to meet with others farmers to learn from their experiences and realise that coexistence is not possible. Legal advice was sought. Lobbying of politicians became a daily occurrence. Meetings with the Chief Scientist and various other influential people became the norm. Every landowner in PEL470 was united and signed an objection to the licence renewal of PEL470.

On 14th October 2014 the Minister for Resources and Energy cancelled our licence.

People power had triumphed…..

Memo to the Minister for Social Services Scott Morrison

Dear Mr. Morrison,

You can ‘wobble’ as much as you like.

I will always remember your actions as the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and, the contempt with which you treated international law, the democratic process and the electorate.

That memory will inform my vote in 2016.

Clarencegirl

https://youtu.be/oaiuSh_HGLo

Australian Politics 2015: Hey, big spender!

The only advantage to be a senior citizen in Abbott’s Australia is that those over 65 years of age will have less years than younger folk to live in the midst of any social and economic hardship this scenario below may bring down on communities the length and breadth of  the land.

The Kouk 28 March 2015:

The Abbott government has no intention of ever repaying government debt. None. It has, quite quietly, announced that it plans to keep borrowing so that government debt remains at 13 per cent of GDP right out to at least 2054-55 which means government debt will be $1.6 trillion. Yes $1.6 trillion of government debt.

The decision to keep government debt at this level was buried in the recent Intergenerational Report. The IGR announced that the Abbott government intends to keep borrowing for at least the next 40 years and therefore maintain government debt "at a level equivalent to 13 per cent of GDP... where it will remain over the projection period [to 2054-55]" (See page 83 of the IGR).

Based on the assumption that Australia's GDP will be around $12.5 trillion in 2054-55, at 13 per cent of GDP, the Abbott government is aiming to have government debt at over $1.6 trillion by 2054-55. It currently is around $365 billion. (This is the level of GDP … implied in the IGR based on the assumption of nominal GDP growth of 5.25 per cent per annum.)