Peter Dutton warns of consequences if immigration contractors don't perform
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Version 0 of 1. The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has warned that contractors who don’t perform or use taxpayer money inappropriately may lose contracts, after initiating an investigation into the company that provides healthcare for asylum seekers. Guardian Australia has revealed a series of failings by the detention health provider, International Health and Medical Services (IHMS). The revelations include internal documents that show IHMS failed to undertake some working with children checks, provided incorrect data about incident reports to the immigration department and believed fraud would inevitably occur within the organisation in meeting the benchmarks set down by the immigration department. On Tuesday the prime minister, Tony Abbott, asked Dutton to look into the claims. Dutton said the claims related to a period of “great dysfunction” under the previous Labor government, but said the department would investigate the claims in consultation with the minister. IHMS has also launched an internal investigation following Guardian Australia’s report that police checks were not undertaken on Manus Island before staff were deployed, and this information was withheld from reports to the immigration department. When asked on Wednesday what steps the minister or the department would take if there was evidence that IHMS or other contractors had acted fraudulently Dutton said: “Like any department we have contracted arrangements with third parties. If people don’t perform under those contracts there will be consequences. If people don’t do the right thing by the Australian taxpayer, if they don’t perform in relation to the contract there are consequences as a result of that.” Dutton added he was referring generally to contractors, rather than specific arrangements. “The commonwealth has contracts with providers. If people don’t perform, if they don’t do the work they were paid to do, there will be consequences as a result of that. I think that’s just a statement of the obvious as I say, and that is not to make particular comment or pass judgement on a particular provider.” He added: “I think across the commonwealth we want to make sure we’ve got value for money, because we’re spending taxpayers’ money. And if people are doing the wrong thing they won’t be performing for the commonwealth into the future.” IHMS have recently been contracted again by the federal government to continue provider health services to asylum seekers until 2019, despite insiders saying the department encouraged external stakeholders to apply due to a perceived desire for change. Dutton was speaking at the launch of the “border watch”, a rebranding of the previously named “customs watch”, which encouraged port industry bodies to report concerns about smuggling. The Coalition has provided an extra $88m in funding to the organisation. The minister and a small press group were surrounded by approximately 50 Australian Border Force officers as the minister spoke. He later observed a sniffer dog attempting to find drugs in a series of pallets. The dog did not appear to locate any contraband. He later licked the immigration minister’s face. |