SOS to navy: get ready for a surge in boats
The navy is providing ‘surge’ support to Australia’s northern waters due to fears government changes to visa policies could spark an influx of asylum seeker boats.
The navy has revealed it is providing “surge” support including more ships and surveillance aircraft to Australia’s northern waters, amid concerns that the government’s changes to temporary protection visas for asylum seekers could trigger a resumption in people-smuggling activities.
Vice Admiral David Johnston told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday night that the Australian Defence Force had received a formal request from the commander of Operation Sovereign Borders for extra defence assets to patrol Australia’s northern maritime approaches.
It is understood that this involved diverting surveillance aircraft and ships from other exercises to Operation Resolute to assist and support border patrols.
The Vice Chief of the Defence Force said the surge support had been in place for the past few weeks.
“I won’t specify the nature of the surge because it is responding to the circumstance that the Commander of Sovereign Borders has asked us for,” Vice Admiral Johnston told the hearing.
“But it is of the nature of additional aircraft surveillance and additional ships that are patrolling in our northern waters. The surge has been put in place in the last few weeks.”
Vice Admiral Johnston would not reveal whether the request was made in response to concerns in Operation Sovereign Borders command of an increase in people-smuggling ventures as a result of the government’s effective axing of TPVs.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil last week issued a statement following the visa changes, warning people smugglers that the Defence Force and Operation Sovereign Borders were patrolling borders to intercept unauthorised maritime vessels entering Australian waters.
Responding to questions from Coalition MPs about whether this was “business as usual”, Vice Admiral Johnston said: “We are offering surge support to Resolute.”
Operation Resolute is the ADF contribution to border-protection operations.
The Albanese government was warned that scrapping temporary protection visas could weaken Operation Sovereign Borders because “changes to any single element (of the operation) … may result in a weakening of the overall denial and deterrence effects”.
The advice was contained in the incoming government brief prepared by the Department of Home Affairs, which found that “Temporary Protection (subclass 785) Visas (TPVs)” were a complementary policy measure that supported Operation Sovereign Borders.
The Australian revealed on Monday that the government was bracing for a potential surge in asylum-seeker boats as it fulfilled its election pledge to end the use of TPVs, paving the way for about 19,000 refugees who arrived by sea to stay permanently in Australia.
By Monday, news of the policy change had already begun to pique the interest of people-smuggling networks in Asia, with one operator in Sri Lanka telling The Australian he would be speaking with contacts in Australia about a potential new asylum voyage.
Under questioning in a Senate estimates hearing earlier this week, Department of Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo stood by his department’s advice to the incoming Labor administration that ending TPVs “without effective mitigation” would undermine Australia’s border-protection system.
“The government I can assure you has listened to advice and has put in place the appropriate mitigants,” Mr Pezzullo said. “So the short answer to your question about whether the government’s acted contrary to advice? I would say ‘no’.”
Mr Pezzullo also issued an apology over his department’s “regrettable” and “significant” failure to renew a legislative instrument designating Nauru as a regional processing country, leaving the country exposed over summer with an uncertain offshore-processing option.
Mr Pezzullo said Home Affairs “failed to monitor and track” the lapsing of the arrangement, which he said “should not have occurred”. The lapsed designation was not picked up by the department until December 15.
The Albanese government briefed Indonesian, Malaysian and Sri Lankan officials last week on the TPV policy change, ensuring that the nations from where most asylum boats departed were not caught by surprise. A senior government source said none expressed concern over the move.
Under the policy shake-up, TPV holders will be offered new Resolution of Status visas that will come with social security rights, higher education support and access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, along with ongoing Medicare cover and mental health support.
But The Australian has confirmed that TPVs would stay on the statute book, leaving them available as a future deterrent to people-smuggling operations while avoiding a messy political debate over the toxic issue that dogged the Rudd and Gillard governments.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd abolished the Howard government’s TPVs and offshore processing in 2008, despite warnings it would encourage people-smugglers, unleashing a wave of 820 boats carrying more than 50,000 asylum-seekers, including at least 1200 who died at sea.
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