Albo’s government to investigate mass election day text on asylum seeker boat arrival
Anthony Albanese’s government will reportedly probe the arrival of a Sri Lankan asylum seeker boat and a mass text sent by the Liberal Party on election day.
Federal Election
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Anthony Albanese’s government will reportedly investigate the arrival of a Sri Lankan asylum seeker boat on the morning of the election – after the Liberals sent mass texts out to voters about it on voting day.
Scott Morrison had warned voters earlier in the week that people smugglers were preparing to fire up their businesses in the event of a Labor win.
On Saturday, the Liberals sent a mass of robo-texts to voters after seizing on Mr Morrison’s announcement an asylum seeker vessel had been intercepted apparently en-route to Australia.
The move outraged senior Labor members, who questioned the timing of the announcement and the Liberal Party’s immediate mass text messages to voters in marginal seats.
The message read: “BREAKING – Australian Border Force has intercepted an illegal boat trying to reach Australia. Keep our borders secure by voting Liberal today. https://vote.liberal.org.au.”
Today, the Sydney Morning Herald reported multiple senior Labor sources have confirmed there would be a review into how the boat got so close to Australia and the timing of the disclosure. News.com.au has reached out to Mr Albanese’s office for comment.
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The newly sworn-in Prime Minister is currently in Tokyo for a meeting of the Quad grouping with United States President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday – leaving his deputy Richard Marles as Acting Prime Minister.
A spokesman for the Liberal Party confirmed it sent text messages to an undisclosed amount of mobile phone numbers on Saturday afternoon advising people to vote Liberal to “keep our borders secure”.
Screenshots of the messages were shared widely on social media and were received by voters in tightly contested seats including Gilmore, Corangamite and Bennelong.
The Australian Electoral Commission said it was aware the texts had been sent out but these types of messages were not prohibited by the electoral act, with political parties exempt from privacy and spam laws.
Refugee advocate and former Socceroo Craig Foster said the messages were “absolutely disgusting”.
“The use of vulnerable people, minority communities to stoke fear, division, demonisation for political gain,” he wrote on Twitter.
“My deepest apologies and solidarity with our beautiful Australian-Sri Lankan community for being used in this way. We must be better than this.”
Not long before the messages were sent, Mr Morrison used his final media conference of the campaign to announce a boat had been intercepted on Saturday morning after making its way from Sri Lanka.
It is understood about 15 people were on board the vessel that was stopped by Australian authorities off the west coast of Christmas Island after almost making it to the mainland.
On Saturday afternoon those people on board an Operation Sovereign Borders vessel having their credentials verified.
Mr Morrison claimed he wanted to share the information with Australians in the spirit of “full transparency”.
“I’ve been here to stop this boat, but in order for me to be there to stop those that may come from here, you need to vote Liberal and Nationals,” he said.
“In the interests of full transparency, in the middle of an election campaign, the Labor Party was advised of this and a statement has been issued by the border protection authorities.”
Mr Morrison had previously declared there would be no public discussion of “water matters”, when he was immigration minister and Australia began turning back asylum seeker vessels at sea in November 2013.
On Saturday, Greens leader Adam Bandt questioned the “unbelievable” timing of the day’s events.
“Anyone who remembers the Tampa crisis knows the Liberals will stoop to any depths to win votes,” he wrote on Twitter.
“This looks like a cynical and disgusting stunt, and one final reason people should vote Scott Morrison out today.”
The Coalition had sought to revive the debate about borders in the lead-up to the election, claiming a Labor government would be soft on immigration and entice people smugglers to resume making voyages to Australia.
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