Decade-high in asylum-seeker boat arrivals on the horizon

Two more asylum boats reached Australia in November, the latest known arrivals in the busiest ­period for people-smugglers selling sea fares from Southeast Asia in a decade.

Operation Sovereign Borders commander Brett Sonter. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Two more asylum boats reached Australia in November, the latest known arrivals in the busiest ­period for people-smugglers selling sea fares from Southeast Asia in a decade.

Operation Sovereign Borders recorded the latest two boat arrivals in a monthly report published on December 27, revealing there were 13 people on the latest two boats and they “were safely transferred to a regional processing country consistent with Aus­tralia’s long standing maritime ­people-smuggling policies”. Although Operation Sovereign Borders does not confirm the destination in its report, Nauru is Australia’s chosen regional processing country.

Australia’s asylum boat tally for 2024 is incomplete, but the final figure will be the highest since 2013, when 300 asylum-­seekers reached Australia by boat and Labor lost government.

Australia’s border control agency is yet to reveal whether any boats arrived in December.

However, Operation Sovereign Border’s reports for the 11 months from January to November 2024 show 14 boats carrying at least 201 asylum-seekers reached Australian waters in that time.

The total number of people on the boats is not exact because Operation Sovereign Borders has stopped reporting the number onboard if it is between one and four people. Instead, the group is reported as “fewer than five”. This happened twice in 2024. This means the confirmed number of asylum-seekers to reach Australia between January and November 2024 is 199 but the real figure is between 201 and 209.

The largest known number of arrivals on one boat in 2024 was 74. Authorities intercepted that group at sea in July. Those onboard were Sri Lankan nationals and crew. They were taken ashore to Christmas Island and flown to Colombo as part of an ongoing ­arrangement Australia has with the Sri Lankan government.

On two occasions in 2024, ­Operation Sovereign Borders ­returned boat arrivals to Vietnam as part of a longstanding arrangement with the Vietnamese government that Vietnamese nation­als who arrive in Australia by boat can be sent home immediately. After years of no or few people-smuggling ventures by sea to Australia, Operation Sovereign Borders and Australian Border Force officials were put on high alert in the second half of 2023.

All other asylum seekers who arrived by boat in Australia in 2024 were sent to Nauru.

They became aware there was a rush of asylum-seekers into ­Indonesia and a surge in illegal maritime activity across Southeast Asia.

The smugglers wrong-footed Operation Sovereign Borders when they adopted a new tactic of using fast, small boats to land customers on the Australian mainland. This had not been the practice of people-smuggling ventures for many years.

During the sustained wave of arrivals between 2008 and 2013, smugglers sent slow and rickety vessels into the path of Australian navy and Customs vessels near Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef with the intention that they would be intercepted.

The boats were often unseaworthy because smugglers knew that once they were intercepted, Australian authorities would burn them.

The change came in November 2023 when the Australian government was stunned to learn that 12 asylum-seekers had been dropped off at the remote Truscott air base between the far northern West Australian towns of Derby and Kununurra. The venture was so successful that the smugglers did it at least two more times, once more at Truscott and on the Dampier Peninsula north of Broome.

Operation Sovereign Borders was uncertain how many boats the smugglers used for the Dampier Peninsula operation that landed 39 men on the mainland in two groups in February.

The boat or boats was long gone by the time the passengers ventured out of the Kimberley bush seeking help.