‘Dirty deals’: Nauru rorting, bikie gang allegations to be referred to NACC

3 months ago 20

Allegations of rorting, graft and bikie gangs infiltrating critical border security operations are set to be referred to the national anti-corruption watchdog as more disturbing evidence emerges of Australia’s secretive offshore detention regime in Nauru.

This masthead and 60 Minutes revealed over the weekend that the Finks bikie gang had won a key taxpayer-funded contract to provide security on Nauru to former immigration detainees slated to be deported from Australia.

President of Nauru, David Adeang and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a signing ceremony following a bilateral meeting at Parliament House in Canberra last year.

On Monday, it was revealed that a high-ranking Home Affairs Department official had put his job on the line to allege that Australian taxpayers had paid millions of dollars for nonexistent or unnecessary asylum seeker services to prop up Australia’s offshore detention regime.

Greens immigration spokesman David Shoebridge said: “When you have a system as rotten as offshore detention, it’s no surprise that bikies are the only ones willing to work there. A morally corrupt system will attract actual corruption.”

“[The government] views Nauru as a colony, a place they can do all their dirty deals and human rights abuses without oversight and without care for those who live there.

“For decades, the Liberal and Labor governments have encouraged corruption and abuse in offshore detention by denying scrutiny with extreme secrecy measures.

“My office is working to gather the threads of what we know of this scandal and refer it to the NACC.

“To be honest, I have little hope that will adequately deal with the systemic corruption issues given the NACC also operates in total secrecy and has achieved so little to date.”

Labor MP Josh Burns, chair of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, said he believed it was important that government contracts be held to high standards.

“If there are concerns around who those contracts are being awarded to and how they’re being conducted, then that needs to be investigated fully and ensure that our dollars are going to where they should be, not anywhere else,” he said.

He said public money shouldn’t be used to underpin income for bikies, and that when taxpayer contracts were awarded they were put through high standards of probity.

“I don’t know where it’s up to within government, but all I can say is that I’ve seen those reports and we take these sorts of things very seriously,” he told reporters on Monday.

Former Australian soldier Oisin Donohoe told this masthead that Finks gang members, led by the group’s feared international president, Ali Bilal, are part of the security operation launched to help the Albanese and Nauruan governments manage the so-called NZYQ cohort.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, when asked about the corruption claims, said the minister would respond to that, but added “I note that those issues, as I read them, come from a period before we were in government”.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke declined an interview request and did not answer questions relating to the government’s role in the contracts.

In a one-sentence statement, he said he had full confidence in the relevant agencies.

Government sources, speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive matters, said that separate allegations by Home Affairs acting assistant secretary Derek Elias about alleged rorting by the recipients of Australian contracts on Nauru related to agreements made under the Morrison government.

Former spy agency boss Dennis Richardson canvassed such issues in his 2024 report into integrity concerns about the management of regional processing arrangements and made recommendations for improvements, they added.

Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said: “The Labor government launched the Richardson Review into integrity concerns with contracts associated with regional processing.

“It is now up to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to explain to Australians whether the Richardson Review’s recommendations have been implemented in full and if not, why not.

“Labor MPs have been active in criticising the management of these contracts under past governments and, to be consistent, they should now be holding their own colleagues to the same standards.”

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre chief executive Kon Karapanagiotidis said the revelations of alleged “dodgy deals, corrupt contracts, and people’s lives being traded in secret” had been shocking.

Independent MP Monique Ryan applauded the whistleblowers for “shining a light on secretive and concerning practices surrounding Home Affairs’ management of offshore processing and the government’s multi-billion dollar deal with Nauru”.

“The government must release all documents relating to its agreements with other nations for the offshore rehousing of individuals who have sought to settle in Australia,” Ryan said.

“We need to know that our duty of care to those individuals is being exercised, and that taxpayers’ money is being spent responsibly and ethically.”