the private corporations who maintain it. Section 42 of the Border Force Act prevents an
“entrusted” person from recording or disclosing information which is considered ‘protected’,
binding a wide variety of key actors on the island including doctors, nurses or teachers,
essentially the act places onerous secrecy restrictions on anyone who works or provides
services for the Australian Border force. The act criminalises information leaking and so,
maintains a culture of secrecy surrounding the island, severely reducing the pressure from
mainstream media outlets and activist groups. For Agamben, this “concealment and secrecy
of violence lies at the crux of modern democracies.” 20
The Private Companies: Abuse and Profit
Having established the state of exception, Australia has relied upon TNCs to both maintain
and manage the processing centres. The main private companies involved in the maintenance
of the offshore processing centre were Ferrovial and their subsidiary company
Broadspectrum. Broadspectrum through their contract with the Department of Immigration and
Border Protection (DIBP), as of 2014, was responsible for providing garrison and welfare
services at the processing plant on Nauru and Manus Island as well as logistics and security.
The contract also held Broadspectrum responsible for any subcontractors they employed, this
included the likes of major companies such as Wilson Security. These corporations exercised
significant control over the island centre, this was confirmed by an Australia Select Committee
report in 2015 which stated that; “the department [Broadspectrum] has in depth involvement
in oversight of contracted service providers” 21 and exerts “a significant amount of control over
the daily operations on Nauru” 22 . This may show that Broadspectrum had effective control over
the day to day running of Nauru, which further suggests that they would have been aware of
violations of refugee rights. Reports such as Amnesty International’s ‘Islands of Despair’ have
also indicated that employees of the company have either directly caused the human rights
abuse or have failed to prevent it.
Broadspectrum is subject to the UNGP meaning it has a general responsibility to “avoid
causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities” 23 and to
prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts “directly linked to their operations, products
Kenichi, Yamaguchi. "Rationalization and concealment of violence in American responses to 9/11:
Orientalism (s) in a state of exception." Journal of Postcolonial Writing 48, no. 3 (2012): 241-251,
245
21 The Senate, “Select Committee on the Recent Allegations relating to conditions and circumstances
at the regional processing centre in Nauru: Taking responsibility conditions and circumstances at
the Australia’s Regional Processing Centre in Nauru”, Commonwealth of Australia, 2015, paras 3.4
22 Ibid., 3.4
23 Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, “United Nations Guiding Principles on Business
and Human Rights”, United Nations, (2011), 1
20
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