24 February 2018

Transfield Services [now Broadspectrum] was worried about asylum seekers potentially rioting as it looked to clean mould off the inside of tents at the Nauru detention centre, leaked emails show...Transfield may have misled a Senate inquiry over its efforts to fix a mould problem at the facility. Transfield manager Derek Osborn gave evidence at a parliamentary hearing on May 19, 2015 and insisted the company had a "detailed process to remove" the mould on asylum seeker tents... 

An email dated May 12, 2015 from Transfield site manager...said a team had made good progress on cleaning mould off the outside of tents in the family and single male accommodation areas. However, the email warned cleaning the insides of tents had "quite a few complications"..."looking at conducting a workshop...in the near future" to come up with a plan. He said issues to consider included: "messaging" and "behavioural management team involvement".

A former detention centre youth worker said asylum seekers had been consistently complaining about mould in their tents and management did not want to validate those concerns...