So the tragic case of Reza Barati, the Iranian asylum seeker murdered in Australia’s care on Manus Island in 2014, has come to a kind of close: Guardian Australia’s Ben Doherty has revealed Australia and the company providing security for the detention centre, G4S, have finally compensated Barati’s family, nearly a decade on.
In February 2014, the young man was beaten to death in horrific fashion by guards and other staff in the detention camp (a Salvation Army contractor used a rock to crush Barati’s head). He had been trying to seek shelter during a riot and was, according to a review later conducted by former senior public servant Robert Cornall, not involved in those events. Two local men, a security guard and the Salvation Army contractor, were later convicted of his murder, but questions remain over the involvement of others.
That was not, however, what we were told by then-immigration minister Scott Morrison in the aftermath of his murder. Morrison instead tried to portray Barati as having brought his fate upon himself, saying:
Where people decided to protest in a very violent way and to take themselves outside the centre and place themselves at great risk. In those situations our security people need to undertake the tasks that they need to undertake to restore the facility to a place of safety, and equally those who are maintaining the safety of the security environment outside the centre need to use their powers and various accoutrements that they have available to them in order to restore in the way that is provided for under PNG law.
There was never any evidence that Barati had tried to flee to anywhere but the accommodation block in the centre to escape those who would murder him, and no evidence he had participated in violent protests.
Under pressure from journalists, within hours Morrison had to begin walking back that claim, saying there were “conflicting reports” about where Barati was murdered. The nature or origin of the false report that Barati had been escaping the centre has never been revealed. Nonetheless, Morrison persisted with trying to blame Barati for his own death, saying:
When people engage in violent acts and in disorderly behaviour and breach fences and get involved in that sort of behaviour and go to the other side of the fence, well they will be subject to law enforcement as applies in Papua New Guinea.
Within days, Morrison was forced to admit: “I could no longer confirm that the deceased man sustained his injuries outside the centre.”
Morrison also tried to suggest Labor was at fault for the riot, saying that the arrangements that the Gillard and Rudd governments had put in place there might have contributed to it. Cornall specifically rejected that in his review.
In retrospect, the attempt to spin Barati’s murder into some kind of demonstration of how tough Australia was going to be on those who sought asylum seems like an early experiment by Morrison in seeing how far he could push a self-serving deception, a dress rehearsal for the industrial-strength lying and misleading that would characterise his time as prime minister.
The self-righteous misleading, the blaming of others, the effort to claim it was Labor that was really at fault, the partial walk-back when found out — it was all there. And yet being found out had no impact on his political ascent. Within a year of misleading us about how Barati died, Morrison was moved up to social services with an agenda to bring to welfare recipients the same kind of toughness that characterised his time being responsible for asylum seekers.
We know how that ended. And how the misleading statements and lies got worse and worse.
Did Scott Morrison EVER tell the truth? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Maybe it’s just me trying to add one plus one and trying to get an answer greater than two.
But I have read this article and the one above, by Maeve McGregor, and seen a most terrible link. Almost a decade after the murder of Reza Barati we get to the truth. Will it take until 2032 before we get the full truth about the no campaign against the Voice?
At 82 I find the most egregious insults I face daily are the clear signs of political leaders in my own country lying to me. That public life and public discourse has fallen so far and so fast is indeed, as the header on Maeve’s article states: a threat to our democracy and the future of the country.
So many of us oldies held out great hope that this new century with its explosion of shared knowledge would see mankind changing course to save itself.
Those hopes have been thoroughly trashed by this new breed lying scoundrel in our political and business organisations.
Do you remember how it felt after Woodstock?………………….
……….it seemed that anything was not only possible, but likely.
Then the barbarians started fighting back…………………
I remember the late 60s, moratoriums and all, and the 1970s as a time of great optimism and hope – the Age of Aquarius, as sang at “Hair”. And then the neo-cons and Christians,, appalled by the cultural revolution in the west, fought back by taking the reins of power, and it all turned to manure.
It’s why we’re all Grumpy Old Men. We had so many dreams about a better world.
I moved to Canberra in 1970 and well recall the heady Whitlam days when we could see how much was possible. No wonder Kerr dismissed him – couldn’t have all that optimism and hope amongst we comrades.
Kerr was desperate to be considered one of the “nobs” and had demonstrated that most of his life.
And Grumpy Old Woman
I remember – Woodstock was billed as a cultural festival, bring your instruments & art and participate in a new consciousness.
Instead it was a perfect demonstration of the ludicrous proposition that the half million kiddies sitting around in the mud, demanding to be entertained – having broken into the area without paying – needing to fed & water by adults would ever amount to anything.
To paraphrase Christopher Wren, “if you would see the result, look around”.
About as silly a comment as I’ve ever read.
At a rough guess, I’d say you would have been in nappies at the time.
What tripe, never mind, maybe you’ll grow up, one day
Adds a whole new dimension to “arrested development”……………..
Read “Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America” by Kurt Anderson, a renowned author and journalist with the New York Times and others. A comprehensive and highly illuminating history of how big business in America, starting in the late 60s, took over American politics and has driven the rest of the world to the mess it’s in now.
Thanks. I’ll add it to the list and look out for it. Though I am not sure how much of my remaining reading time I want to spend on titles such as this as the reading will be pretty dispiriting. Last week on Crikey someone suggested The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols.
It’s all there in the John Howard playbook. But, hey, the darkest hour is just before dawn.
Morrison never felt the need for evidence (of anything)…………..
……..I am sure he believed (and probably still does) that he ruled by divine right, and hence whatever came to mind must have been divinely inspired and thus did not require any further authentication.
Anybody who believed a painting of an Eagle whispered a message direct from god is not quite the full quid.
You’re never alone with a nutter………………..
Morrison has spoken often of the difficulties he and his wife had in conceiving children, including multiple attempts at IVF.
You would think a person, or a couple, might have some sort of empathy for people facing seeming overwhelming odds in their lives, some understanding that they need support, not more difficulties.
Yet Morrison showed himself, and apparently his wife too since he consults her on various issues, to be entirely devoid of any feeling for humanity other than their own selfish interests.
He is a stain on the nation’s undies, and the dirty linen we are still washing.
“Morrison has spoken often of the difficulties he and his wife had in conceiving children, including multiple attempts at IVF”……..
Maybe his “god” was trying to tell him something?
No, Morrison is convinced, his first born was a miracle, according to her Birth date. Apparently Jen believes the same
This is from his maiden speech:
“After 14 years of bitter disappointments, God remembered her faithfulness and blessed us with our miracle child, –, on the seventh of the seventh of the seventh, to whom I dedicate this speech today in the hope of an even better future for her and her generation.”
I’m not sure what he thought was a better future, particularly, when you consider what he actually did from then to now!!
“Seventh of the Seventh of the Seventh”………………
Only one off from 666 which has a whole different meaning (and much more relevant for Morrison)
It makes me wonder just how he turned out in his various Ministerial positions to consider what he was doing was God’s work. His conscience, ethics and morals definitely took a strange path and are still set on that path even now.
When asked, during an interview, if she had her time over again, what would she do. She replied, RUN, RUN!
To be fair to Mrs M, apparently it was she who pulled him up on his lack of “understanding” on the alleged rape in Parliament House. We’ll be struggling with the dirty linen of those lNP years for some considerable time to come, going back to the 90s. The 2007-2013 years were not foot perfect but a surprising amount of legislation got passed.
Going thru the TV channels recently Jimmy Swaggart was holding forth that the proof of a true pentocostal is “speaking in tongues”. Has Morrison ever been recorded “speaking in tongues”? Most of what he says is verbal garbage, maybe it’s his version of tongues.
We had the same mob of jerks pushing out the same lies about David Hicks when he spent time banged up in Guantanamo.
The Media didn’t pick them up nor condemn Howard’s mob for their behaviour.
This man’s first instinct is to lie, regardless of the question and I have to agree with Gladys’ description of him.
” the self-righteous misleading, the blaming of others, the effort to claim it was Labor that was really at fault, the partial walk-back when found out — it was all there. And yet being found out had no impact on his political ascent. ”
Morrison did not, and could not, get to be PM all on his own. A decent number of politicians and voters hold responsibility allowing/helping filth to rise.
an other,