Outgoing ABF commissioner says border ‘secure’ despite illegal boat arrivals

Outgoing Australian Border Force commissioner Michael Outram says an increase in illegal boat arrivals has been amplified to create a ‘false sense’ of a ‘border in crisis’.

Outgoing Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram addresses the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

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Outgoing Australian Border Force commissioner Michael Outram says the nation’s borders are “secure” despite an increase in illegal boat arrivals, warning that people smugglers are monitoring public debate to sell “false hope”.

In an address to the National Press Club, Mr Outram sought to reframe a spike in illegal maritime arrivals, with 11 vessels recorded this year, as low by global standards, arguing that these incidents had been amplified to create a “false sense” of a “border in crisis”.

He also cautioned that foreign countries “hostile to Australia’s interests” were increasingly using criminal organisations to do their “dirty work” and facilitate espionage and foreign interference via illegal networks.

Mr Outram, who will be replaced by senior Defence figure Gavan Reynolds when he retires next month, said people smugglers were always watching what politicians, the High Court and the media say on national security and migration in order to “twist” their words for their marketing to asylum seekers.

“They are tricksters, they will take anything that anybody says that is in the public domain and try to twist that there is still hope, false hope often, and … take a lot of money off people,” he said.

In a wide-ranging speech reflecting on his 44 year career in law enforcement that started in the London Metropolitan Police, Mr Outram spoke directly to “our adversaries and their lackeys” declaring that “we see you”.

“Countries that are hostile to Australia’s interests are increasingly blurring the lines and creating grey zones, where they think they can operate freely and safely,” he said. “If a foreign regime calculates it is too risky to cross Australia’s border directly, they may use a proxy or criminal organisation to do their dirty work. Foreign intelligence services and their agents also use transnational crime to facilitate acts of espionage and foreign interference … including smuggling money through Australia’s trade system.”

Amid political instability around the world, Mr Outram said many borders were perceived as being in “perpetual ­crisis”, and the drivers behind this were unlikely to settle in the coming years.

“It has to be acknowledged that many international borders are perceived at least to be in a state of perpetual crisis,” he said. “The truth is many of the contemporary challenges to our sovereignty, which can and do drive those perceptions, are unlikely to diminish in the decades ahead.”

Addressing illegal boat arrivals in Australia’s remote northwest, Mr Outram said the ABF was successfully patrolling the Kimberley Marine Park, which is “twice the size of France”.