Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil accuses Peter Dutton of ‘outright lies’ after asylum seeker arrival, announces funding boost to border security

The government is fighting back against claims that 39 men were able to reach Australia’s shores last week due to funding cuts to border security.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil is set to announce a major funding boost to Operation Sovereign Borders after the arrival of at least two dozen asylum seekers reignited fierce debate over Australia’s border security efforts.

On Tuesday, Ms O’Neil hit back against claims from the opposition that the government had stripped funding from its military-style response to asylum seekers and refugees, after at least 39 men who had arrived by boat were discovered in WA’s north-west on Friday.

She said Labor had spent $470m more than the Coalition on border security, including an additional $252m this year, firing shots at Opposition Leader Peter Dutton who yesterday accused the Prime Minister of being “weak” on border policy.

“This operation is better resourced and better backed by our government than it ever has been before,” Ms O’Neil told ABC’s Radio National.

“We should not telegraph to people smugglers or anyone else about the specifics of how we are patrolling our borders and it’s very disappointing, reckless and damaging that in recent days, Peter Dutton has chose to depart from that - presumably because he sees that we can make political gain.”

Mr Dutton accused the government of cutting funding to border security. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Appearing on radio later, Mr Dutton retaliated by calling Ms O’Neil a “very angry person” and claimed Labor had taken funding out the border force when it was last in power.

“If the government’s putting more money in then that’s great but the budget papers show they are taking out $600m cumulatively across the forward estimates in the budget papers,” he told 3AW Melbourne.

Australia’s Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram released a statement yesterday which said that levels of funding to the agency were currently “the highest it’s ever been”.

“Border Force funding is currently the highest it’s been since its establishment in 2015 and in the last year the ABF has received additional funding totalling hundreds of millions of dollars, to support maritime and land-based operations,” he said on Monday.

Ms O’Neil said the ABF was run by one of the most senior naval officers in the country and was a force Australians “should be proud of.”

“It is very effective at policing our borders,” she said.

“We will continue to adjust our approach, of course, because the people smugglers continue to adjust their approach. But we do not need politicians running around the country, as Peter Dutton has done, telling outright lies.”

More than 40 asylum seekers were found roaming the remote Western Australian coast north of Broome on February 16, 2024. Picture: Supplied

Two groups of Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi nationals, who arrived on the same boat and were spotted on Friday afternoon, have now been flown to Nauru for processing and offshore detention.

When asked about a report released in January from Human Rights Watch that denounced Australia’s offshore detention regime as “inhumane”, Ms O’Neil said the men’s fate was now a matter for the Nauran government.

She would not say how long the group would be held in detention.

“I would just say to those who are disputing the ethics of this approach – it was not a very good humanitarian outcome when we had boatloads of people coming to Australia and many people very tragically dying because they failed and drowned in their journey,” she said.

“That is not in my view, under any definition, a humanitarian approach. We have a better system of managing this now.”

Simon Birmingham said the arrival was a ‘terrible failure’. Picture: Martin Ollman/NCA NewsWire.

As tensions continued to flare over border policy on Tuesday, Opposition Home Affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham accused the Labor of playing “catch up” ahead of its funding announcement.

He said that the fact the group of men were able to reach Australia’s mainland undetected was a “terrible failure” and called on the Prime Minister to assure that the Coalition’s border protection policies remained in place.

Mr Albanese told reporters in Perth yesterday that he was confident his government’s commitment Operation Sovereign Borders, which was introduced under the Abbott government in 2013, was absolute.

“What’s important is that the system is in place so that people who arrive as unauthorised arrivals by boat won’t be allowed to settle here,” he said.