When the visiting inspector from Canberra almost fell through the rotting floor of an administration hut at the Manus Island detention centre that the Australian taxpayer has paid $532 million to maintain and run, it said everything about the operator, its contract, and the government department that gave it out.

In February, The Australian Financial Review’s Angus Grigg, Jonathan Shapiro and Lisa Murray uncovered the story of how the Department of Home Affairs handed contracts worth more than half a billion dollars to the obscure Paladin Group to run services including maintenance, security and IT at Manus island.