NEVILLE, GetUp members are coming together to stop corporations profiting from abuse. Will you join us? Find out more and add your name here: www.getup.org.au/nobusinessinabuse

NEVILLE,

Corporations are profiting from the abuse of asylum seekers. We need to hit them where it hurts – their bottom line.

The Senate Inquiry into the detention centre on Nauru just released its final report,¹ detailing a brutal system of abuse, paid for by the government and run by corporations.

The report comes on the heels of last week’s reminder of just how cashed-up the violent detention business has become – Transfield Services, the contractor in charge of Australia’s offshore incarceration regime on Manus and Nauru, announced their annual revenue was $3.79 billion.²

Much of that money is earned through the very system the Senate Inquiry investigated – one that sees brave men, women and children abused. People seeking asylum are imprisoned indefinitely, psychologically traumatised, beaten and raped.³ Clearly, though, the government doesn’t care – even before the Senate Inquiry released its report, Transfield Services was given a new 5 year contract to keep up their horrible work.⁴

It’s a savage system, but its architects and profiteers forgot one thing: the strength of the Australian public, standing united as investors and consumers against corporations profiting from human suffering.

We’ve got a plan to get these businesses out of abuse. GetUp members, their friends and family are going to give corporations like Transfield an ultimatum: clean up your act, or we’re pulling our financial and public support. If enough of us sign on, we’ll force companies like Transfield to end their toxic involvement in Australia’s detention camps. Click here to help bring down this abusive business model.

As GetUp members know from our game-changing corporate campaigns to save the Reef and protect renewable energy, in the modern economy no corporation operates in a vacuum – and that gives us power. The network of money that keeps abuse in business is huge – but we’re at the centre of it. And that means we can turn it on its head.

Transfield already knows how vulnerable it is. Two weeks ago one of Australia’s largest super funds – HESTA – dumped $23 million of its shares in the company, citing evidence of human rights abuses.⁵ Since then, the business headlines have been full of reports of other investors getting more and more worried, forcing Transfield to stop hiding behind the Government and deal with the issue itself. It’s the perfect moment for GetUp members to do what we do best – create unstoppable momentum. Together, we can push other businesses to follow HESTA’s lead, and begin to break the system that lets Transfield profit from abusing some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

If enough of us publicly declare that we will not support businesses who finance or profit from abuse, we can bring the whole system tumbling down.

To make this audacious plan work, we need to show corporate Australia just how many people are deeply committed to the decent treatment of people seeking asylum, whether it’s by organising in our local communities or moving our super funds away from harmful investments.

GetUp members are signing on to say we will only give financial and public support to companies, institutions and organisations that refuse to support or profit from abusive practices towards people seeking asylum.

Will you join us in this game-changing campaign, NEVILLE? Add your name here.

In hope and determination,

Aurora for the GetUp team

PS. This audacious new approach will complement the crucial work that GetUp members already do campaigning against the terrible legislation that lands in Parliament with frightening regularity. Together, we’re strengthening our refugee and asylum seeker campaign, exploring new avenues to use our collective power to drive change. The national debate has stalled, and our major political parties are clearly too frightened to move. This campaign is the circuit breaker.

Will you be a part of it? www.getup.org.au/nobusinessinabuse

References
[1] ‘Taking responsibility: conditions and circumstances at Australia’s Regional Processing Centre in Nauru’, Final Report, Select Committee on the Recent Allegations relating to Conditions and Circumstances at the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru, 31 August 2015
[2] Transfield Services FY2015 Full Year Results, page 7
[3] ‘Rapes, sexual assault, drugs for favours in Australia’s detention centre on Nauru: independent Moss review’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March 2015
[4] ‘Transfield wins new contract to run offshore detention centres’, The Australian, 31 August 2015
[5] ‘HESTA dumps Transfield citing detention centre abuses’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 August 2015