What’s life really like at Christmas Island?

One former Serco guard is not surprised at the unrest.

His job working in detention centres was horrific.

At one stage he had to recover the bodies of dead infants who had drowned at sea trying to reach the island.

“Pulling dead, mangled babies out of the water while their mothers screamed at you (was the hardest part),” the guard said in a question-and-answer session on social networking site Reddit.

The island is a little over 1500km from the Australian mainland but it might as well be on the other side of the world, as workers there are required to sign hefty nondisclosure agreements.

Even doctors who treat patients have been threatened with up to two years’ jail if they talk to journalists about the conditions on the island.

The guard decided to defy the gag order, and conceal his identity before talking about the things he had seen.

The damage caused during a disturbance at Christmas Island immigration detention centre.Source:Supplied

‘THERE ARE HUGE MISCONCEPTIONS’

The former guard declared that he worked for Serco at a number of Australia’s immigration detention centres, including Christmas Island. While on the island he experienced two riots and saw things he should never have had to see.

“Pulling dead, mangled babies out of the water while their mothers screamed at you (was the hardest part),” he said.

“How stressful and dangerous it was to actually be a guard in these places. (I saw) hundreds of assaults and acts of violence against guards, none reported for the sake of public perception.”

He said families stayed together and single men were separated but “there were a few instances of people in the family centres selling their young daughters to grown menfor things like cigarettes and favours when they got out”.

Working on the island opened his eyes to the “huge misconceptions on both sides of the issue”, he said.

“The right would have you believe (those seeking asylum) are all dole bludging terrorists who are here to have as many babies as they can and Muslimatically take over the country.

“The left would have you believe they’re all innocent little angels who have never hurt a fly and are all escaping the evil sunni/shia warlords who are trying to decapitate them for being gay and drinking whisky.

“In reality they’re mostly just normal people, you can tell the ones who have escaped actual war and unspeakable horrors just by the look of them pretty much. They’re doctors, cleaners, rapists, drug dealers, mothers, enemy combatants, carpenters, school teachers, nurses.”

He said conditions on the island for those living in immigration detention are less than ideal but they’re better than where the guards live.

“We’d always joke about kicking the detainees out of the centre and sleeping in there ourselves because it was so much nicer. The accommodation you are provided is, at its kindest, unsanitary, at its worst, downright dangerous.

“One female guard was taking a shower a few doors down from me one day and the entire bathroom roof collapsed in on her because of damp rot. Black mould everywhere, a lot of guards with respiratory problems. F*** Serco, we’re just numbers to them, same as the detainees.”

Damage caused during the Christmas Island detention centre riot. Picture: AAP Image/Peter Dutton’s officeSource:AAP

IT’S DUMB, THIS IS NOT A MILITARY OPERATION’

Asked what his view on secrecy was, the former Serco guard labelled it “dumb”.

“It’s not a f***ing military operation for God’s sake, nobody is going to get exposed as a secret agent. The only thing secrecy really covers up is how badly the workers are treated by the company, government and detainees, and also the sh***y conditions the detainees are forced to stay in for sometimes years.”

He said even after leaving Serco he was worried about speaking out. Before joining the Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), he used a “throwaway” address and a series of proxies (networks) to disguise his identity.

“We signed a hefty NDA under threat of being buried in civil suits by the company. This was in 2011 even before the government’s new anti-whistle blower legislation, so that’s why I’m using a throwaway and proxies for this (AMA). I’ll also add that officers had to sign new, specific ones every time we were deployed to a different site, and even the same sites after leaving and coming back.”

For all the terrible things the Serco guard witnessed, he also saw plenty that made him re-evaluate his thinking about people seeking asylum.

“It really opened my eyes to the fact that it was a really diverse group and that no side of the political debate really had any clue as to what they were talking about. Personally, my grandparents were refugees to Australia after the second world war themselves so I was never really anti-immigration going into the job, but I was still a little surprised at how ... normal they were as a cross-section of the community.

“There were some real scumbags, but there were some real nice people too, and all the shades of grey in-between.”

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has defended the use of ‘reasonable’ force by federal police during the Christmas Island disturbance. Picture: AAP Image/Peter Dutton’s officeSource:AAP

‘THEY WOULD BEAT YOU TO DEATH’

It gets violent on Christmas Island, but it’s not one-sided. Asked about what he witnessed, the former Serco guard said “belligerent bogan” guards are prevented from abusing their powers and, if anything, are at greater risk than those in immigration detention.

“They were definitely prevented from abusing their powers though, because at the basic compound guard level there is no power, you are a servant at the beck and call of the detainees.”

He said guards on Christmas Island are outnumbered by detainees 350 to one and they know the risks.

“You really had to build a rapport with them otherwise they would just mob you and beat you to death in the compound. Never to death, but quite a few times severely enough to be hospitalised.

“One of my good friends had a kettle of boiling water thrown over his face and body a few compounds down from me, because he opened the door to help a detainee who needed something. He had to leave the job and has permanent physical and mental scars.”

He said he never saw a guard abuse a detainee but saw plenty of detainees abuse guards.

“Detainees always had control of the centre during my time, control by Serco was just an illusion that could be shattered at any moment. The last thing the guards wanted was an excuse to piss them off because there was simply nowhere near enough of us to do anything about it if they did, and they did.

Conditions on Christmas Island are tense. Detainees and authorities on the island clashed for two days this week. ABC News reported detainees “built barricades, set fires and armed themselves with weapons, including a chainsaw” but that order has been restored.

Steve Brooker, who was the national mental health manager overseeing Christmas Island, Nauru and Manus Island, told the ABC a riot was inevitable.

“Sometimes there’s just a match that’s thrown onto a tinderbox as has happened this week and things just flare up unexpectedly but also expectedly, because you can generally see that some of these things could have been predicted.”

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has been approached for comment.

Christmas Island was once known for its exotic wildlife, but now is known for the detention centre.Source:Supplied