Christmas Island empties before ‘flood’ of arrivals

Labor has been quietly emptying its Christmas Island detention facility since it swept to power last year, sparking warnings from a leading security expert.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil. ​Labor has been quietly emptying its Christmas Island detention facility since it swept to power last May.

Labor has been quietly emptying its Christmas Island detention facility since it swept to power last year, amid warnings from a leading security expert that a “flood” of asylum-seekers could arrive on Australia’s shores at any time.

Analysis by The Australian of Department of Home Affairs figures shows the number of people detained in the North West Point detention centre has fallen from 209 in May last year to just 53 at the end of April – a fall of 75 per cent in under a year.

This is compared to an average of about 200 people under the ­Coalition government, according to the Department’s Immigration Detention and Community Statistics monthly report.

With Anthony Albanese likely to face pressure to weaken border policies at Labor’s national conference in August, the government is claiming the dwindling number of people on Christmas Island is a sign of more efficient management of asylum-seeker requests.

The new analysis comes after The Australian revealed Labor would spend up to $350m a year keeping an empty Nauru detention centre open as part of a commitment to deter people-smugglers from sending boats to Australia – a strategy implemented under Tony Abbott’s Operation Sovereign Borders.

The Australian understands refugees from Nauru have been resettled in Canada, US and New Zealand under regional processing arrangements. None of the group has been allowed to settle in Australia.

David Brewster, a senior ­research fellow at the Australian National University’s National ­Security College, warned Australia could experience a surge of ­arrivals at any time and that offshore processing centres maintained an important feature of deterrence.

Dr Brewster said Europe had experienced a flood of refugees from Pakistan after it relaxed its visa rules, and that there was “every possibility” Australia could see a spike in arrivals from Bangladesh or Pakistan.

“The bottom line is a flood of arrivals could occur at any time, and while the problem of arrivals from mostly Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka has eventually been ­resolved, there’s a whole lot of different new sources of arrivals from the region and further afield,” he said. “There’s over one million ­Rohingya refugees sitting in the largest camps in the world in southern Bangladesh, and they haven’t decided to seriously ­attempt to travel to Australia yet, but there’s every possibility they could.”

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil on Monday defended Labor’s approach to border control and said offshore processing would remain “open and on standby” for any new arrivals.

The Australian in May reported that Operation Sovereign Borders had begun upgrading security facilities at the Christmas Island detention centre ahead of further expected asylum-boat arrivals.

But Ms O’Neil said keeping asylum-seekers detained was a “festering sore in Australian politics” and that Labor’s push to process refugees was an “unmitigated good thing for the country”.

“The Prime Minister has said that our approach to the asylum-seeker issue is to be strong on borders, not weak on humanity,” Ms O’Neil told the ABC.

“This has been a festering sore in Australian politics for more than a decade and I’m very pleased that our government has taken that approach of making sure we bring that to a close.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Patterson said Labor must be transparent about why the number of people ­detained on Christmas Island had fallen, as he attacked the government over its decision to abolish temporary protection visas.

“Given the other steps the ­Albanese Labor government has already taken to weaken Australia’s successful border protection policies, they must be transparent about the reasons for these movements to ensure they do not give false encouragement to people-smuggling operations,” Senator Patterson said.

A spokeswoman for the Refugee Council of Australia said it welcomed the government’s transfer of people off Christmas ­Island and said it was crucial that detained refugees had access to ­resettlement options.