Asylum seekers get a recreation break away from the camp on Nauru. Credit:Angela Wylie But a year on, Save the Children will end its work on Nauru on Saturday, having subsequently lost its contracts to Transfield Services and Connect Settlement Services. The government said other organisations, including the Red Cross and Connect, agreed to pay a performance bond. (The Red Cross has subsequently denied this.) For-profit Transfield Services, which has had security and administrative roles and is now taking over Save the Children's welfare work with asylum seekers on Nauru, routinely agrees to bonds under its government contracts. The revelation comes as doctors and healthcare workers protested nationwide on Friday against the treatment of asylum seekers in detention, and amid ongoing controversy over the treatment of a refugee known as Abyan, who was allegedly raped on Nauru. Civil society leaders said the demands placed on charities working in immigration were part of a broader push to silence organisations involved in advocacy work and social justice.

Illustration: Matt Golding. "It is certainly an attempt to silence groups, and I think the impetus for these kinds of clauses and contracts and restrictions seems to be growing," Community Council for Australia chief executive David Crosbie said. Mr Crosbie said previous governments had made it clear that criticism could cost groups funding, but the threat was now often less overt, including the use of gag clauses. An Iranian family in detention on Nauru. When asked whether Save the Children had had been expected to pay a bond, chief executive Paul Ronalds confirmed it had.

"The imposition of performance securities was interpreted by us as discouraging us to speak publicly on policy issues," he said. "We had to work hard to ensure that Save the Children's right to continue to advocate was maintained." The Immigration and Border Protection Department confirmed Transfield, Connect and the Red Cross had provided performance security, but a spokeswoman said the department did not agree that the bonds were used to try to silence non-profit organisations. Red Cross and Connect did not answer questions before deadline. International Health and Medical Services, which runs medical care for asylum seekers, referred to the department questions about whether it paid a performance bond and agreed not to speak publicly. Relations between Save the Children and the government soured in October last year when nine of its staff were expelled from Nauru amid accusations they had encouraged asylum seekers to self-harm and fabricate stories of abuse in a bid to get to Australia. A review by former integrity commissioner Philip Moss found the allegations against the nine staff were unsubstantiated. Mr Ronalds declined to say whether he believed refusing to sign a gag clause had cost Save the Children ongoing work on Nauru.

In an interview ahead of the remaining 120 Save the Children staff leaving Nauru, he said he believed the charity had been treated "quite harshly" by the government. "Clearly, there was no evidence to support the public allegations that were made about Save the Children, and that created an enormous strain and stress for our staff, who were already providing services to very vulnerable clients in extremely difficult conditions," he said. "Increasingly, what we've seen both here in Australia and around the world is what I would describe as a significant diminishing of civil society's ability to speak out." Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie said she had long been concerned about governments at all levels attempting to restrict advocacy and public work by independent non-profit organisations. Dr Goldie said the Coalition government had stripped funding from some advocacy organisations representing the disadvantaged, and funded others on the condition they did not speak out.

"We have also seen explicit challenges to the legitimacy of advocacy by charities, such as the House of Representatives inquiry into the charitable status of environmental [organisations]," she said. "A strong and independent civil society is essential to democracy. The Prime Minister and his colleagues play a vital role in sending the right, not wrong, signals about whether it is safe to speak up, and challenge those in powerful positions, or not." Mr Ronalds welcomed the detention centre on Nauru being opened to allow asylum seekers to move freely on the tiny island, but said the change did not address the fundamental problem – that they had nowhere else to go. "What hasn't changed is that none of the refugees on Nauru have any real hope for their long-term future," he said. Calling for greater transparency and independent oversight of all Australian asylum seeker processing centres, he said he believed Save the Children had played a critical role in raising concerns on behalf of children and adults in its care.