Make no mistake, PM’s resolve is on the line over return of boat arrivals

Anthony Albanese speaks during a press conference in Perth.

The last time Australia confronted a resurgence of illegal boat arrivals I had a seat at the table, and two things have always stuck in my mind from that time.

The first was the general fear from officials that if the Abbott government didn’t stop the boats, as the Coalition had successfully done in the Howard era, we would never be able to stop them.

The second memory was walking out of a meeting of the national security committee of cabinet – after those same officials had congratulated themselves for a sustained period of no boat arrivals – and thinking to myself: you are all the same people who sat in there under Rudd and Gillard and couldn’t stop the boats.

The only difference between then and now was the change of politicians in the room and a prime minister with resolute determination that he would stop at nothing to defeat the people-smugglers and restore Australia’s sovereignty.

It was a profound lesson in the power of resolve. We had it then, and under this current government it has gone missing; that and basic ministerial competence.

Illegal migration is a scourge few countries seem able or willing to solve.

In 2013, after 50,000 people arrived by boat under Labor, the fear was the people-smuggling trade was more sophisticated than ever, the supply chain of vulnerable people ever increasing, and the use of technology made things more challenging for law enforcement.

As those who there at the time will attest, just rolling out the old Howard-era measures, such as turnbacks, temporary protection visas and offshore processing weren’t enough. The smuggler gangs were using new tactics deployed in other regions so new structures were put in place, including the unified command structure known as Operation Sovereign Borders and Australian-purchased orange lifeboats to take people back to Java after they’d scuttled their fishing boats.

And it worked: from early 2014 until 2022 there were almost no illegal boat arrivals.

That was then, though, and this is now. On top of 11 boats intercepted since the election, there have been at least two that made it undetected through to the Australian mainland: one last November, another larger vessel last week.

And that’s not really surprising given the head of the Australian Border Force told the Senate late last year that surveillance flights were down more than 20 per cent and maritime patrols were down more than 10 per cent under the current government.

A second group of asylum seekers has turned up at a remote outstation north of the Aboriginal community of Beagle Bay. Source: The Weekend Australian.

It’s possible Indonesian people-smugglers have come up with new tactics, such as using military-style inflatables to speed boatpeople to our northern beaches, and for the smugglers to then escape back to what looks like an innocent fishing vessel.

The government is playing down the seriousness of these border breaches. Last Friday, Anthony Albanese avoided media questions, using the Kevin Rudd-esque tactic of claiming not to have been briefed.

I know how national security matters are handled. If the Prime Minister could not be directly contacted, his travelling team would have been, or the Australian Federal Police detail with him (their phones are always on). Either the Prime Minister was being dishonest with the media or the whole national security apparatus has gone to sleep.

Polling already shows the electorate isn’t happy about the return of people-smugglers; it’s even showing up in younger voting demographics. Hence, this week, from the Prime Minister down, the government has been at pains to emphasise that Operation Sovereign Borders remains in place and that funding has been increased (notwithstanding the ABF testimony last year).

This is because of the conflation we’re now being fed about onshore funding numbers versus offshore funding. And that has been borne out by the leaks that Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil is racing to put in a submission for urgent extra funding in the May budget. We can but hope this extra funding materialises because the last thing we need, as the world’s security situation deteriorates, is the revival of something akin to a peaceful invas­ion.

Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison address the media during a joint press conference in Melbourne in 2013.

Back in 2007 Rudd promised he’d be tough on borders, and we all know how that turned out. On Labor’s watch, there were almost 1000 illegal boats, more than 50,000 illegal arrivals and more than 1000 deaths at sea. Back then, at any one time there were an estimated 10,000 would-be illegal migrants to Australia who’d flown into Jakarta in the hope of picking up a people-smuggling boat to Christmas Island.

If anything, the number of people willing to try their luck crossing illegally into a rich country, in the hope of a better life or, occasionally, for more nefarious purposes has only increased. Several hundred thousand people are crossing into the US every month, often swimming the Rio Grande. Last year, 30,000 people crossed the English Channel to Britain on small boats. Last year, there were almost 400,000 irregular arrivals into the EU, mostly across the Mediterranean, with nearly 3000 thought to have drowned making the attempt.

The only way to stop people-smuggling is to make it clear their occupants will never gain permanent residency in their target country. Every people-smuggling venture that doesn’t end with boatpeople returned to their starting point is a chink in the armour. Even ending up in Nauru, as the latest arrivals have, for now, gives the smugglers something to sell – given that most boatpeople on Nauru eventually got permanent residency in a Western country.

There’s little doubt, as Peter Dutton suggests, smugglers are now testing the government’s resolve. They’d be watching the shambles of 149 released foreign criminals, now all but sure to stay forever in Australia, on welfare, and telling prospective customers that if even murderers and sex offenders can be given a new life in Australia, they too will get their chance.

And while the Prime Minister now talks a big game on borders, it must never be forgotten that as a senior frontbencher Albanese voted against turnbacks as Labor policy.

Kevin Rudd

It’s telling that the only senior official from 2013 who believed that Labor’s influx of boats could be stopped, and should be stopped, was then customs head Mike Pezzullo. Last year the government sacked this former Labor staffer turned bureaucrat, on flimsy grounds. Again, this is why resolve matters – because, without it, you fall at the first sign of hardship.

The bleeding hearts who think we should just accept illegal migration as a fact of life need to be reminded that Australia is one of fewer than 30 countries in the world that permanently resettles migrants; 70 per cent of the rest of the world’s nations do not. In per capita terms, we are a world leader.

So, we should never be ashamed of demanding the right to determine who comes to this country or resile from the fact a sovereign nation is only sovereign when it controls its borders.

Back to resolve, do you credibly think the Prime Minister, at 60 years of age, has now rejected his lifelong convictions about illegal migration? I think we all know that middle-aged leopards don’t change their spots, but without his resolve our country is once again at the mercy of people-smugglers.