The murder of Reza Barati — a dress rehearsal for later, bigger lies by Morrison

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.