This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

Home affairs tried to suppress the release of Serco’s immigration detention centre operating manual by arguing it would allow immigration detainees to make human rights complaints as a “means of intimidating Serco personnel”.

The Department of Home Affairs and Serco, which helps run Australia’s onshore detention centres, fought for almost three years to keep the company’s detention centre policy and procedure manual secret from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

They warned the manual, if released to the ASRC through freedom of information laws, would provide a “guidebook of Serco’s operational responsiveness capabilities to detainees and ‘sympathisers of nefarious intent’”, an apparent reference to refugee advocates.

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The department, speaking on behalf of Serco, sought to characterise detainees as violent, querulous, unpredictable and dangerous, saying one-third had come from prisons and more than half were detained for visa non-compliance.

They warned the release of the manual would lead to an increase of complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Such complaints, they argued, were used as a deliberate means of pressuring Serco staff and increasing the “administrative burden” on the company.

“Several detainees are known or reasonably suspected of creating excessive complaints to external bodies for their stated purpose of causing administrative burden to Serco and the department as a means of intimidating Serco personnel,” Serco and the department argued in their submission to the Information Commissioner.

“The release of the documentation would provide querulous detainees with access to a list of specific [processes] which Serco undertakes in the management of property, recording of personal details, conduct of individual management processes and virtually every other aspect of detainee care, management and interaction.”

Serco and the department argued the “querulants” were likely to base “future false and misleading allegations” against Serco to “stifle the administration capabilities of Serco and the department”.

The Information Commissioner, in a decision published last week, rejected the submissions and ordered the document be released.

Commissioner Angelene Falk said she was not satisfied the “documents could result in a substantial adverse effect on the safety, security and good order of immigration detention facilities and operations as asserted by the department and Serco”.

ASRC principal solicitor, Carolyn Graydon, told Guardian Australia the argument was “ludicrous”.

“There’s a complete lack of accountability for the treatment of people in immigration detention centres so it is ludicrous to be turning the argument the other way around, when what is required is a statutory framework for conditions of immigration detention, which we lack in Australia,” she said.

“We have common complaints of excessive use of force, common complaints that the risk assessment procedures being used are inappropriate and not reviewable and cannot be obtained under FOI.”

Graydon called for the department to release the document quickly.

“It’s about shining a light on the darkest places in relation to the treatment of people in immigration detention,” she said, adding that it puts the argument that the documents should be exempt on commercial grounds “in the bin”.

There have been no indications whether the department plans to appeal the decision.

Guardian Australia sought comment from both the department and Serco.

Recordings leaked to the Guardian last year showed Serco guards boasting about the ineffectiveness of detainee complaints.

In one recording a Serco guard claims he has been the subject of numerous complaints, but none has ever been investigated.

“I honestly have no idea how many complaints I’ve ever had,” the guard is recorded as saying. “You know how many times I’ve been investigated? Never.”

“It just gets shut down just like that, because they know I’m doing the job I’m supposed to be doing.”

Serco and the department say the recordings were unverified.