Albanese slaps back criticism, defends Operation Sovereign Borders

More than 40 asylum seekers who arrived in Western Australia have been sent to Nauru and will be placed in Australia’s detention centre on the tiny island nation.

But as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insisted his government was committed to the Operation Sovereign Borders regime first put in place by the Abbott government, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton criticised the abolition of temporary protection visas and questioned how the asylum seeker boat had escaped surveillance.

The 13 men were given food and basic medical care before police were alerted.Credit:

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil accused Dutton of trying to weaken Australia’s border protection regime for political gain, undermining Operation Sovereign Borders and giving “people smugglers the disinformation they need to get people on boats”.

“Every person who has attempted to reach Australia by boat since I have been minister is back in their home country, or in Nauru, having wasted thousands of dollars and having risked their lives,” she said late on Sunday.

“He will say or do anything to wreck and create division if it is to his political advantage.”

The initial group of about 30 asylum seekers, believed to be Pakistani nationals, was discovered by locals around Beagle Bay on Friday, and the second group, found about an hour later, was Bangladeshi and Indian.

Albanese pushed back against the opposition’s strident criticism of the men’s arrival on Australian shores, and criticised Dutton for politicising it.

The last asylum seekers held on Nauru left in June. A new group was then sent in October.

The arrival has escalated the political fight over asylum seeker policy as the opposition has pursued Labor over its response to the High Court’s ruling in the NZYQ case, which led to 149 immigration detainees with a history of murder, sexual offences, assault and kidnapping in the community.

Border Force refused to answer questions about the asylum seekers – one of the men told the ABC they had set out from Indonesia – or the boat they arrived on, including whether any sailors had been detained. Flight tracking website FlightAware indicated the group had flown from Amberley Air Force base, near Brisbane, and arrived on Nauru mid-afternoon on Sunday.

Albanese said: “I do note the comments of the commander of Operation Sovereign Borders, who has made very strong comments about the need for … politicians to not politicise national security.

“Peter Dutton is someone who is showing, with his overblown rhetoric and with his overreach on this issue, showing that he’s not interested in outcomes or in the Australian national interest. As usual, he’s just interested in politics.

“But we’re very confident that Operation Sovereign Borders remains in place. We are implementing the policies that we said we would before the election, and this is just the latest demonstration of it.”

Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said asylum seekers stuck in Indonesia were becoming desperate.

“Since 2018, the UNHCR and IOM [International Organisation for Migration] have cut support for asylum seekers arriving in indonesia,” he said.

“They’ve got no right to work, no right to accommodation and no access to education or medical care. They’re extremely vulnerable. People arriving in Indonesia need to find some way to get to safety and security.”

If that’s where the arrivals left from, “it would not be surprising,” he said.

Royal Australian Navy rear admiral Brett Sonter, who commands the joint taskforce in charge of Operation Sovereign Borders, on Friday evening pushed back against claims by Dutton that Labor was losing control of borders.

“The mission of Operation Sovereign Borders remains the same today as it was when it was established in 2013: protect Australia’s borders, combat people-smuggling in our region and, importantly, prevent people from risking their lives at sea,” Sonter said.

But Dutton claimed the prime minister had opposed Operation Sovereign Borders in the past – a reference to Albanese fighting Labor’s decision to adopt a boat-turn-back policy at the party’s 2015 ALP national conference – and claimed money had been ripped out of the department’s budget.

“We know that in the last budget, on a cumulative basis, $600 million has been taken from Border Force and from Operation Sovereign Borders; as the Australian Border Force commissioner points out, they are stretched,” Dutton said.

“I don’t know whether the same level of surveillance is being undertaken, as was the case when we were in government, but it’s inconceivable that these boats would get through without being detected.

“Operation Sovereign Borders as it’s termed now is nothing like Operation Sovereign Borders under the Liberal Party. We know that temporary protection visas have been abolished and we also know that they’ve ripped money out of Operation Sovereign Borders.”

Refugee Legal executive director David Manne said even as Australia transferred the asylum seekers to Nauru, the country could not transfer its legal responsibilities.

“The key issue here is Australia’s clear-cut obligations to assess any claims for protection from persecution under due process, and to ensure anyone in need of protection is not sent back into harm’s way,” Manne said.

“There are laws in this country that provide for exactly that assessment to take place, and that’s because we have signed up to those obligations.”

-With Zach Hope

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