{"id":35233,"date":"2024-10-09T03:12:52","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T19:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=35233"},"modified":"2024-10-11T06:30:11","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T22:30:11","slug":"federal-government-probed-over-awarding-of-manus-island-security-contracts-to-paladin-group-alexandra-beech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/federal-government-probed-over-awarding-of-manus-island-security-contracts-to-paladin-group-alexandra-beech\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Government probed over awarding of Manus Island security contracts to Paladin Group | Alexandra Beech"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content\">\n<div class=\"moz-reader-content reader-show-element\">\n<div id=\"readability-page-1\" class=\"page\">\n<div>\n<h2><strong>Labor and the crossbench plan to zero in on the awarding of contracts for security services on Manus Island as Senate estimates gets underway today<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #000000; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">(Ed: This is from 2019 &#8211; so it is not as though our political class could not have addressed this issue as the outlay grew)<\/span><\/p>\n<section role=\"contentinfo\" aria-label=\"key points\" data-component=\"KeyPoints\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/teaser\/10820274\">\n<h2 data-component=\"Heading\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\"><br \/>\nKey points:<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul role=\"list\" data-component=\"List\">\n<li type=\"unordered\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">Senators have questioned why the contracts were not awarded to a more established company<\/span><\/li>\n<li type=\"unordered\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">The government must show due diligence was done in the tender process, crossbenchers say<\/span><\/li>\n<li type=\"unordered\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he had &#8220;no sight&#8221; of the tender process<\/span><\/span>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">It&#8217;s the final week of estimates hearings before the federal election, and the answers provided will help shape the debate around border protection in the upcoming election campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">More than $420 million over nearly two years is going to a relatively unknown company, the Paladin Group, that was registered to a beach shack on Kangaroo Island and a PO box in Singapore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">&#8220;I think the very biggest question to be answered is \u2014 how on earth did this tiny unknown company with no track record ever get $423 million in contracts from the Australian taxpayer?&#8221; Labor Senator Murray Watt said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">&#8220;You would normally expect contracts of that value to go to large, well-established companies with a track record and with directors with some reputation.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">The contracts were awarded in a &#8220;limited&#8221; tender process, meaning there may not have been any other applicants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">Officials are allowed to use that sort of process in specific situations, such as when only one company is capable of doing a job, but Senator Watt said it seemed odd.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">&#8220;We know that in early January this year the company was awarded a $109 million contract extension and that was at a time when one of the company&#8217;s directors was banned from entry to Papua New Guinea, where the contracts operate,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">&#8220;And at the same time, or shortly after, one of their other directors was charged with money laundering and fraud offences in Papua New Guinea.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">The Paladin contract came to light in a story by the Australian Financial Review last week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 20px;\">The story also reported the Department of Home Affairs made an advance payment of $10 million to Paladin because the company did not have enough money to begin the contract.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 data-component=\"Heading\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Government must show due diligence, crossbenchers say<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\">Those reports have South Australian crossbench senator Stirling Griff worried.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\">He wants to see a detailed breakdown of the contract and said the government must show that due diligence was done in the tender process and that the company was providing adequate services.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\">&#8220;If you actually do the calculations, it averages out at $1,600 a day to house each and every refugee, not including food and welfare services, which is more than double what you pay in a five star hotel,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\">&#8220;So it doesn&#8217;t appear to represent value for money in any respect.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\">Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has said he had &#8220;no sight&#8221; of the tender process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\">But Greens immigration spokesman Nick McKim said that was not good enough.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\">&#8220;Hundreds of millions of dollars have been awarded to a shonky company and Peter Dutton&#8217;s claiming he knew nothing,&#8221; Senator McKim said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\">&#8220;Well if he didn&#8217;t know, he should have.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; color: #000000;\">&#8220;I mean you couldn&#8217;t make this stuff up and it&#8217;s exactly why we need a federal ICAC, so matters like these can be properly investigated.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure data-print=\"inline-media\" data-component=\"Figure\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/video\/10819796\">\n<div data-component=\"ExpiredMediaWarning\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"moz-reader-block-img aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au\/19e0e61e9ceeab5b9c4555febf1121ee?impolicy=wcms_crop_resize&amp;cropH=576&amp;cropW=1023&amp;xPos=0&amp;yPos=0&amp;width=862&amp;height=485\" alt=\"Attorney-General says asylum seekers will undergo further security checks.\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Attorney-General says asylum seekers will undergo further security checks<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">But yesterday, Attorney-General Christian Porter told the ABC&#8217;s Insiders program this had been subject to a &#8220;full independent Commonwealth procurement process&#8221; and that such procurement processes were often kept at arm&#8217;s length from the minister.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">He said the sums of money involved needed to be seen in context.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">&#8220;The reality is that doing these types of things offshore in Papua New Guinea and in Nauru is a very costly exercise,&#8221; Mr Porter said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;\">&#8220;But in exacting that costly exercise we have managed to stop the inhumane outcome of 1,200 people dying at sea, 50,000 people arriving illegally and at its peak 20,000 people being held in immigration detention in Australia.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2019-02-18\/government-to-be-grilled-over-manus-island-security-contracts\/10820268\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; color: #800000;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Source:<\/span> Federal Government probed over awarding of Manus Island security contracts to Paladin Group<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 14px;\">Feb 2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Related<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a style=\"color: #800000;\" href=\"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/nacc-finds-no-corruption-in-paladin-investigation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">NACC finds no corruption in Paladin investigation<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Labor and the crossbench plan to zero in on the awarding of contracts for security services on Manus Island as Senate estimates gets underway today (Ed: This is from 2019 &#8211; so it is not as though our political class could not have addressed this issue as the outlay grew) Key points: Senators have questioned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,301,3,286],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australias-move-to-the-right","category-corruption","category-political-issues","category-refugees"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}