The violence that killed Reza Barati in the Manus Island detention centre was “eminently foreseeable” and the Australian government is responsible for his death, a parliamentary inquiry has found.



In a 156-page report, the parliamentary committee found that the Australian government’s failure to properly process claims for refugee status and an overcrowded, insecure facility had led to widespread frustration and two days of rioting.

The report said: “The events … were eminently foreseeable and may have been prevented. It is clear from evidence presented to the committee that the Australian government failed in its duty to protect asylum seekers including Reza Barati from harm.”

Barati was beaten to death in rioting in the detention centre on 18 February. He was allegedly beaten with a stick by detention centre staff then had a rock dropped on his head, killing him.

Two Papua New Guinean men who worked at the detention centre have been charged with his murder. Their trial is expected to begin early next year.

The report said Australia had “effective control” of the centre and should pay compensation to Barati’s family and to others injured – one man was shot, another blinded – during the violence.

The committee comprised three Labor members, two from the Coalition and one from the Greens.

The two Coalition members issued a dissenting report, saying the Manus facility had been opened by the Labor government and that the majority report was “an attempt … to rewrite history”.

But they disagreed with only two of the majority report’s six recommendations – those that referred to payment of compensation to the victims of the riot and access to Manus Island for journalists, lawyers and the United Nations.

The majority report also found:

The detention centre was not secure from outside incursion, despite knowledge of local hostility for more than 18 months.



The centre was overcrowded – at double its intended capacity – with new arrivals.



But it was the failure to process refugee claims, and to explain to asylum seekers what was going to happen to them, that was the major cause of violence, it found.

“The hopelessness of the situation transferees found themselves in, with no clear path forward and no certainty for the future, was the central factor in the incident,” the report said.

The committee found that PNG and Australian security staff had attacked asylum seekers: “It is undeniable that a significant number of local service provider staff, as well as a small minority of expat staff, were involved in the violence against transferees.”

In June 2013 families and children were removed from Manus, making it an men-only centre. This led to an “increased likelihood of tensions leading to violence”, the committee found.

It said in the aftermath of the violence the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, had given information to the media that was wrong – he said PNG police had never entered the detention centre, when they had – that was not corrected for four days.

Those police, the committee found, were under Australia’s effective control. “Australia was effectively financing the PNG police mobile squad deployed at the centre, both prior to and during the events in which its members assaulted transferees,” the report said.

The parliamentary committee asked the prime minister, Tony Abbott, the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, and the immigration minister for permission to visit the centre but said it had received no response from any of them.

But staff who were on the island said violence on Manus was inevitable because of the conditions under which detainees were held.

Nicole Judge, who had previously worked on Nauru, told the inquiry: “I thought I had seen it all: suicide attempts, people jumping off buildings, people stabbing themselves, people screaming for freedom while beating their heads on concrete.

“Unfortunately, I was wrong. I had not seen it all. Manus Island shocked me to my core. I saw sick and defeated men crammed behind fences and being denied their basic human rights, padlocked inside small areas in rooms often with no windows and being mistreated by those who were employed to care for their safety.”

Morrison’s office has not returned calls seeking his response to the report.

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, a participating member of the inquiry, said: “We know now that Reza Barati’s death was entirely preventable. The government was warned repeatedly that the situation there was deteriorating and that security provisions were inadequate.”

She said the minister’s behaviour after the riots had been “reprehensible”.

“He lied to the Australian people and blamed the victims themselves. The mountain of evidence submitted to this inquiry all points to one undeniable fact: the Manus Island centre is untenable and must be closed down now.”

The dissenting report acknowledged “logistic and operational” challenges on Manus, but said the government had overcome these with upgrades to infrastructure and improvements to work practices and training.

It did not comment on the findings of the majority report that Morrison had misled the Australian public.

Amnesty International Australia’s refugee coordinator, Dr Graham Thom, said asylum seekers and refugees on Manus were still not safe. “The PNG and Australian governments now propose to move recognised refugees into the community on Manus Island, with no apparent steps taken to ease hostility between the detainees and the community on Manus Island, nor to protect the refugees placed in the community from reprisals and further violence.”