Manus Days: The Untold Story of Manus Island

by Michael Coates

Michael Coates is an ex-soldier looking for new challenges when he answers an ad for "interesting work" in the South Pacific. Soon, he and other young men like him find themselves at the epicentre of Operation Sovereign Borders - the controversial Manus Island Regional Processing Centre. In a place where few have been but everybody has an opinion, they find a hotbed of simmering ethnic tensions. It's a place where nothing is what it seems, where ideologies and agendas clash and violence, self-harm & subterfuge are the languages of negotiation. As part of the MRPC's Emergency Response Team, Michael and his colleagues see the human face of the asylum seeker issue at its worst. As they navigate the thin line between humanitarianism and security, they find themselves under attack from all sides - both from the "refugees" within the centre and their advocates at home in Australia. When the much-heralded PNG resettlement programme finally comes into effect, the long-brewing tensions finally boil over into violence. Whilst the asylum seeker advocates claim peaceful protest, Michael and his colleagues find themselves under siege. Now they must charge head-first into a powder-keg of desperation and violence. What they will face there are young men very different but also much like them in many ways.

316 pages, Paperback

Published February 14, 2018

Reviews

[Ryan Argent · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's about time a book like this came out.
It reveals that so much of what has been reported on at Manus Island to be distortions of the truth or just downright lies as well as giving a first hand account of what life is like for both staff and transferees.

Written by someone who actually lived and worked there, it is both a funny and frustrating read that is unbiased and brutally honest and I highly recommend it to anyone who's ever tried to weigh in on the topic of refugees or the offshore facilities for illegal immigrants. This should help people to understand what really happens there and that the people working in the facility are normal people trying to do the right thing in a very difficulty situation and that many of those living there are not all poor, hard done by victims.

[JESH · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this after Berouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountain for a different perspective on the Manus story. It was hard for all concerned but hardest for those who didn’t just fly out and away every few weeks.

[James Anderton]

Worked with this bloke and while some of his observations are quite accurate, a significant amount is thoroughly wide of the mark. This is a consequence of his position within the project, he was a low level guard with some rudimentary emergency response duties, and this team were kept out of the bigger picture as they weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Disturbingly, a number of them believed they were defending Australia and approached the work in this way. Depressingly predictable as most were former soldiers so brought the very worst of that culture with them including drug dealing, alcoholism, violence and PTSD.

The combination of this, 1500 pissed off asylum seekers, poor welfare provision and a Garrison Service Provider run by a sociopath created a toxic mess.

This book is nothing more than a look at a specific part of this project, at a very low level, from the perspective of ideology motivated Australian's who hated the idea of Australia letting these types of blokes in.

It isn't a pragmatic or balanced look at what actually occurred.

[Ross Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been a while since I read this book, but as I notice there is an interview with Behrouz Boochani promoted today I feel I should comment. I think people should read both books before judging. There are always other ways to look at the world's problems. Displaced people will always be desperate, and seek any way to achieve a better outcome. the world's history is full of that. We have desperate people and also people who are frightened of change and feel threatened by other cultures. We need balance and the truth, please read both books as I have.

[Shane Webber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad that a book like this gets very little attention while the ringleaders of the riots get given literary awards.

[History Buff · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are profoundly irritated with any bleeding heart refugee advocates, you might like to give them this book as a Christmas present. It should open their eyes to the reality that some refugees are, as the author puts it, fleeing not persecution, but rather prosecution. You know, for nasty little crimes they committed in their own countries. Such as drug dealing. Or murder. The book's only fault is that it is poorly edited, and full of typographical errors that would ideally have been corrected by a proofreader. Nonetheless, no large, cashed-up publishing house that is under the sway of the woke brigade would have touched so politically incorrect a book, so we should just be grateful that it was published at all.

[Peter Lockey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Annoying but authentic...

[Shane Mattis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having worked there this is a great untold account of what that place was like. Must read if you dont want the echo chamber of the mainstream media

[Basil Fawlty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read before you pass any judgement on what MRPC was and the “quality” of people that were residents there.