Manus Island: Morrison concedes he was wrong.

[i-need-a-martini]

So it looks like all of the initial reports that Fairfax were printing were correct:

The death and injuries occurred INSIDE the compound by staff using unlawful force.

Unbelievable. Can you imagine the terror those (unarmed) boys and men must have felt?

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/scott-morrison-admits--information-he-gave-on-...

[boris1gary]

the worm will probably blame everyone else, take no responsibility and blab on about how they have stopped the boats. I do wonder why these "prison camps" don't have camera's everywhere. I would have thought that the government would have insisted as I'm sure the scummy security outfit are making lots and lots of money out of the contract and clearly not much is being spent on the asylum seekers? 

The Prime Minister for Unemployment would have us believe that a lot of the asylum seekers are some sort of nasty and yet the whole joint where they are imprisoned has no cameras?

[icyfroth]

He's probably being given conflcting reports himself, by people looking to cover their own backsides, like the security staff, and those looking to advance their own cause, like the transferees.

[purplecarrot-top]

Maybe he should have said "I do not know, what has happened at this time". Not the best reply but better than what has been put out there.

[i-need-a-martini]

So then perhaps his response to the public should not be to demonise a group of people without finding out what the story was first. Perhaps comments from a PM about how necessary it is for security to be "firm" is astoundingly insensitive given that he did not have the information available when he said it. Perhaps they should have shown some diplomacy instead of pointing the finger of blame directly at the asylum seekers. Perhaps they should have interviewed the victims first before accepting statements from perpetrators. Perhaps now was not the time to use the press conferences on the events to re-state the policy on asylum seekers and people smuggling. Perhaps it is an extraordinarily innapropriate time to boast about how successful the 'stop the boats' policy has been straight after you have spoken about the "asistance" you are providing to get a murdered mans body back to their country of origin .

Did the Liberals not learn anything from Tampa? 

[windrake]

But in the Saturday night statement, Mr Morrison said he had new information that cast further doubt on that claim.

“The precise nature of these events are the subject of the review and police investigation that has been initiated,” he said.

“It will be the task of that review and the police investigation to determine the facts of this incident.”

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/scott-morrison-admits--information-he-gave-on-...

Looks like he got some information put it out to the public to inform the public what happened is a mistake.

Looks like the security staff had a riot on their hands that they had to fight to the death to protect themselves, then covered it up.

This security firm has now been sacked & the Transfield company will take over.

I think Morrison is doiing a very difficult job & calling people "worms" shows a lack of understanding of the enormity of the mess Labor has left behind themselves.

Here's a thought, instead of screaming for blood at every opportunity why not take a look at the way you are acting on here, every incident, every migrants spurious claim, is fell upon in glee to smear the government.

[icyfroth]

Exactly. Ppl here are very quick to jump on the bandwagon and spread misinformation to further their own agenda.

[i-need-a-martini]

Windrake - the approach in keeping the public informed intelligently is what is lacking and that is making this situation much more difficult than it needs to be.

The fact is that the first instinct of the Abbott government was to demonise the asylum seekers first BEFORE they had any facts. It is a tactic that Howard loved but which backfired on him in a major way as we all know.

People are satisfied if they are informed.

Yet up until yesterday the government was still stating that they would say nothing until an investigation occurred and that this investigation could take "several month". Seriously? That is not good enough. I suspect (just like the case of the burnt hands 'investigation') that the governments strategy is to string people along for so long that they forget that they were waiting on answers.

The only reason they came forth with information now is because they have lost control of the amount of information being distributed by other sources. To continue to remain quite to pount the finger at the asylum seekers was quickly exposing them as liars.

[i-need-a-martini]

Misinformation? It is rare that the SMH gets their information too wrong. And in this case there was no misinformation. Simply MORE information than the government was willing to give.

[boris1gary]

---

@windrake wrote:

But in the Saturday night statement, Mr Morrison said he had new information that cast further doubt on that claim.

“The precise nature of these events are the subject of the review and police investigation that has been initiated,” he said.

“It will be the task of that review and the police investigation to determine the facts of this incident.”

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/scott-morrison-admits--information-he-gave-on-...

Looks like he got some information put it out to the public to inform the public what happened is a mistake.

Looks like the security staff had a riot on their hands that they had to fight to the death to protect themselves, then covered it up.

This security firm has now been sacked & the Transfield company will take over.

I think Morrison is doiing a very difficult job & calling people "worms" shows a lack of understanding of the enormity of the mess Labor has left behind themselves.

Here's a thought, instead of screaming for blood at every opportunity why not take a look at the way you are acting on here, every incident, every migrants spurious claim, is fell upon in glee to smear the government.

---

here's another thought, being an apologist for this government must be a difficult job and will only get harder, the glee with which the LNP apologists express while wallowing in the swamp that the likes of the the Minister dwells in will be hard to wash off.