Scott Morrison visit sent Manus tension soaring, says G4S whistleblower

Scott Morrison visit sent Manus tension soaring, says G4S whistleblower

• Former security officer Martin Appleby talks exclusively to Guardian Australia, the first guard to speak out
• Minister 'put security at risk' when he told asylum seekers they would never see Australia
• Detention centre beset by lack of proper procedures, unprofessional conduct and atrocious conditions, Appleby says

• 
  theguardian.com,
  Monday 28 April 2014 15.12 AEST
  

Scott Morrison directly contributed to tension in the Manus Island
detention centre during a late September visit, according to an
explosive set of allegations made by former G4S guard Martin Appleby,
who is the first guard to speak publicly since the unrest on Manus in
February that left one asylum seeker dead.

In an exclusive
interview with Guardian Australia, Appleby, who worked as a safety and
security officer and a training officer on Manus between July and late
December 2013, alleges:

• The immigration minister addressed a
  compound in late September, resulting in a state of “high alert” being
  called for riot, fire and self-harm. Appleby made these observations in a
  video diary that was recorded just days after Morrison’s address. The
  minister, according to Appleby, told asylum seekers: “You will never see
  the shores of Australia.” The decision to address asylum seekers in
  this manner, “put people’s security at risk, including his own”, and was
  a turning point in tensions within the camp, according to Appleby.

• Papua
  New Guinean nationals in the incident response teams (IRTs) were given
  “probably three days” of training. Appleby describes this as not at all
  adequate. Local IRTs are alleged to have been involved in the violence
  that erupted on the evening of 17 February, when Reza Barati was killed. A G4S incident report extract of that night
  seen independently by Guardian Australia observes a manager “lost
  control” of her IRT that evening. Appleby, who has a decade’s experience
  in corrections, says the training of the local IRTs should have been a
  “minimum six intensive weeks”.

• As the numbers in the
  centre began to swell after the introduction of the “PNG solution”, G4S
  “couldn’t afford any more time to give to training and it was a sort of a
  snowball effect”, Appleby says. “It was a failure that was always going
  to fail,” he adds.

• There was no proper procedure in
  place to count the number of asylum seekers in the centre. Appleby says
  he has "no doubt" detainees absconded from the camp.

• Facilities in the detention centre were atrocious: “No one should be made to live under those conditions. No one.”

A
spokeswoman for Morrison’s office said there was “no basis in fact” for
the allegation that the minister’s September trip had exacerbated
tension on Manus. “Claims that the minister was ‘evacuated’ or had
‘increased tensions’ are false. They have no basis in fact,” she said.

Morrison said in an Operation Sovereign Border press conference on 30 September
that he had addressed asylum seekers on Manus: “I gave them a very
clear message, and it was this; they will not be getting what they came
for. They would remain there at that centre until they went home or were
settled in a country other than Australia.”

Asked for a response
to all of Appleby’s allegations, the spokeswoman responded: “The
government inherited a facility on Manus Island that had been rushed by
the previous government.” A full statement can be read here.

Guardian
Australia has produced three films of Appleby’s allegations. They
feature never-before-seen footage from inside the detention centre and
use evidence obtained by a sustained investigation into the unrest.

None of the footage or documents used were provided to Guardian Australia by Appleby.

He
also alleges that there was no process to permanently separate
vulnerable asylum seekers from the main population. Appleby says he was
given the task of caring for one sexual assault victim for 24 hours; the
detainee was “very scared” of what would happened to him when he
returned to his compound.


Appleby was present during the evacuation of the centre on 18 October,
after an altercation between the PNG navy and police outside the main
gate. His is the first detailed account of that event. He says PNG
forces turned on G4S staff who rushed out to stop the confrontation.
Personnel were evacuated single file along a beach behind the centre,
leaving asylum seekers alone in the compound. He says there were no
evacuation procedures. “We didn’t know how many staff at that point were
being evacuated,” he said. “Was it mismanagement? Was it lack of
procedure? Was it all of the above? For people from professional
backgrounds to act in such a way was just disgraceful.”


Since leaving Manus, Appleby has announced he will stand as an ALP candidate in the Victorian state elections. He says none of his allegations are politically motivated.

A
spokesman for G4S did not respond to Appleby’s specific allegations.
“G4S will not comment in detail on individual allegations with regard to
the Manus Island incidents of 16 and 17 February, as we do not wish to
pre-empt or compromise a number of Australian and PNG reviews that are
currently under way,” he said.