www.smh.com.au today on the $8BN in immmigration department contracts for 2012 - a very important story
Sunday, 21 April 2013
Contractors profiting from asylum seeker industry
- Date April 21, 2013
Matt O'Sullivan
Business Reporter
Refugees bring big opportunities for some, write Matt O'Sullivan and Bianca Hall.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/contractors-profiting-from-asylum-seeker-industry-20130420-2i72s.html#ixzz2R3p6n3lGA surge in asylum seekers held in detention centres on Australia's mainland and Pacific island outposts is proving to be a growing money spinner for companies contracted by the Immigration Department.
A long list of companies including charter airlines, hire firms and blue-chip transport companies entered into, or held, contracts with the department last year. Across all its operations, the department had contracts worth more than $8 billion last year.
The largest beneficiary was Serco, which holds $1.8 billion in contracts to run Australia's detention centres.
But others show the effects of ballooning numbers of asylum seekers on Australia's territories.
Sydney firm Pillingers Hiring Service had a $500,000 contract to supply marquees for use as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers on Christmas Island between October and December.
And the Cocos Club, the only pub on the tiny West Island in the Indian Ocean, had another contract for $103,000 to provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers, and clean the club afterwards.
On Thursday, 28 February this year we put this call out on the blog:
If I was motivated by profit and strong cash flows I would gravitate as close as possible to the Federal Government's Immigration Minister.
He is bound by the government's policy stuff-ups to spending billions of dollars in ways that are difficult to control. Every smart operator with half-way decent connections knows it.
Contractors can charge what they want. The government is weak, the service providers strong in this relationship.
Could someone (hopefully a few) have a look at who has the contracts, what they provide, how much they get - all that sort of detail.
By Friday, 1 March we'd had plenty of responses. Fran and Neville really nailed it with this 96 page spreadsheet detailing every immigation department contract extant during the year 1 Jan to 31 Dec 2012:
Immigration, where the spending is easy, $8,052,306,504.05 in contracts from AAP to Zetner -
Yesterday I asked Australia's best research team to find out how much of your money our immigration department is spending.
You sent me so much material that there are hours and hours of reading ahead of me.
But these 96 pages sent to me by Fran and Neville are mind-boggling. They're from the www.immi.gov.au website.
Well the spreadsheet soon disappeared from the Department's website without a trace, but Fran and Neville had grabbed the data and we'd published it
By Tuesday, 5 March 2013 reader Dennis had done heaps more work on the raw data which we posted in Dennis's superb spreadsheets here
More analysis on the Immigration Department's $8 Billion in contracts for last calendar year
You'll recall that last week Fran and Neville sent in the 96 page spreadsheet detailing the Department of Immigration and Citizenship's contracts in force, or entered into from 1 January, 2012 to 31 December, 2012 and only listing contracts in excess of $100,000.
That spreadsheet was unfathomable to me. The total contract value was $8 billion - huge money in anyone's terms, and certainly worthy of much more analysis.
Well, reader Dennis has done that further analysis. He has produced a magnificent Excel workbook with a couple of very useful worksheets.
I'll let Dennis explain in his own words,