Disturbing evidence is emerging of moral confusion and a propensity to hide embarrassing facts, within Australia's Border Protection Command system, on its obligations to protect lives of people on suspected illegal entry vessels (SIEVs) passing through Australia's northern maritime surveillance areas.
A powerful investigative report by Natalie O'Brien led the Sydney Sun-Herald's 'Extra' lift-out section on Sunday (a shorter version of the article is online in The Age). O'Brien set out a convincing case, assembled from many grieving relatives in Australia, that a boat which left Indonesia on 13 November 2010 with 97 passengers on board, never reached Christmas Island.
None of the passengers has been located, despite exhaustive enquiries in all relevant refugee care and detention agencies in both countries. We must assume the boat was lost at sea with no survivors.
The Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor advised George Newhouse, a lawyer representing the families in Australia, that:
Neither Border Protection Command nor the Australian Maritime Safety Authority have any information relating to a venture that matches the details of your correspondence.
The Minister's office did not offer to make any further enquiries.
At the same time, Border Protection Command (a joint interagency command comprising ADF, AFP and Customs elements) faces two public enquiries — a coroner's inquest in Perth and a Parliamentary Joint Select Committee enquiry in Canberra — into the shipwreck of SIEV 221 at Christmas Island on 14 December 2010, drowning about 50 people.
I wrote an initial comment in Eureka Street on 19 December 2010 and have made submissions to both enquiries. My concerns on this complex issue require a bit of reading and thought. In sum, I believe the following propositions to be true.
Many SIEV boats — small wooden ocean fishing boats, with motors and essential navigational aids — come to Australia from Indonesia. Relatives in Australia usually know from phone calls when boats are on the way.
Most arrive safely under their own steam, usually in the vicinity of Christmas Island or Ashmore Reef, one to three days' motoring from Indonesian departure points. These are short, normally safe crossings unless the boats are overloaded, defective or encounter exceptionally bad weather. Over 220 such boats have officially been listed as arriving since 2001.
BPC prefers, for reasons of safety, law and public image, to intercept SIEV boats at sea in a zone 12–24 miles offshore. A public impression is nurtured that SIEV boats are detected at sea by BPC vessels or aircraft,