Comcare warns Home Affairs over violence and fires in Melbourne & Villawood detention centres

Internal documents obtained by the Guardian reveal a surge of stabbings, overdoses and fires inside Australia’s immigration detention network, prompting the federal work-health-and-safety regulator Comcare to threaten enforcement action against the Department of Home Affairs. Reports dated 9 October 2026 cite eight fire incidents at Sydney’s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre between February and May, alongside a violent brawl at Melbourne IDC on 18 August that left six detainees hospitalised with stabbing injuries from improvised weapons. The facilities are managed by US contractor Management & Training Corporation (MTC) and its local subsidiary Secure Journeys under a A$2.3 billion contract awarded in 2024. Despite earlier government “show-cause” notices and financial penalties, Comcare now believes the department is contravening Section 19 of the Work Health and Safety Act by failing to control risks posed by violence, aggression, illicit substances and fire. The regulator’s improvement notices warn of ongoing legal liability if hazards are not mitigated. For mobility and relocation teams the findings are significant: corporates routinely use detention-centre statistics when assessing duty-of-care risks for assignees whose visas lapse or are cancelled. Heightened scrutiny of detention conditions could accelerate Canberra’s plans to reduce detention numbers and expand community placement options—developments that may alter removal pathways for non-compliant foreign workers. More immediately, the scandal piles political pressure on Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, already under fire for visa processing backlogs and student-visa integrity reforms. Unions representing detention-centre staff say chronic understaffing exacerbates security lapses, while human-rights advocates argue the incidents prove indefinite detention is “unsafe by design”. Business groups worry that any abrupt policy pivot—such as large-scale releases into the community—could trigger tough new employer-sanctions regimes to deter visa over-stayers. Comcare has given Home Affairs a short deadline to demonstrate effective risk-controls. Failure to comply could lead to prosecutions, further contract penalties for MTC and renewed calls for the detention network to be renationalised—another potential variable in Australia’s already fluid immigration-enforcement landscape.