WA boat landing leaves border control secrecy in shreds

The asylum-seekers at Beagle Bay are led away by border force officers. Picture: Bardi and Jawi Aboriginal Corporation

This is a nightmare for a government accustomed to conducting the difficult business of border control in secret.

If asylum-seekers make it to dry land in Australia, it is usually at the grim Border Force theme park of Christmas Island. This beautiful island is ruled with an iron first by the commonwealth, which has always loved that it is far away from the prying eyes of citizens who like to know what is being done in their name.

There, the commonwealth, its agencies and contractors block roads, hand out move-on notices on public land, bring in charter planes in the dead of night, use buses as screens and insist on ­silence from all involved.

On Friday, however, Border Force was on the lands of the Nyul Nyul people at the remote Aboriginal community of Beagle Bay on the Kimberley coast.

About 30 asylum-seekers had arrived before them and were in plain sight.

Locals had rescued them from the heat, given them water then told their friends, family and the media what happened.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil was responding to media queries about the new arrivals with the standard non-statement: “As is longstanding practice, we don’t comment on Operation Sovereign Borders.”

But as photos emerged of the men smiling and resting in the shade at Beagle Bay, Border Force issued a rare statement confirming what we all knew. It was conducting “an operation” in the north of WA.

This is the second time in three months that asylum-seekers have been delivered undetected to the Kimberley coast.

In November, when a group including people from Pakistan ­arrived at Truscott air base seeking help, the government tried to keep it quiet. This has been the edict since Tony Abbott became prime minister in 2013. Then immigration minister Scott Morrison refused to discuss “on water” matters and Labor recognised the technique as highly effective. It has adopted it.

The WA coast is not easy to surveil. It is common knowledge that illegal fishers are in Australian waters a lot. However, the practice of people-smugglers has previously been to sail close to Australian waters and wait to be intercepted. Their boats are burned.

In truth, most asylum-seekers are “screened out” at sea in a practice established by Julia Gillard to get rid of new arrivals before they have even technically arrived.

The latest two arrivals are concerning on more than one front. They are highly visible.

They may also represent a trend in which smugglers get to keep their boats and do it all again.

On Friday, as the group from Pakistan and Bangladesh smiled and looked relieved in the centre of Beagle Bay, a Border Force officer handed her card to Gareth Ogilvie, the head of a local Aboriginal ranger group.

If you see any asylum seekers, she told him, get in touch.