Following the interception late last week of an asylum seeker vessel approximately 43 nautical miles south of Java, Operation Sovereign Borders Commander Angus Campbell told media that 'all people have been accounted for'. When pressed by journalists for further detail, the Minister for Immigration Scott Morrison simply reiterated, 'The Commander has made it very clear ... that all the persons on the vessel have been accounted for.'
At the time that Morrison and Campbell were stubbornly sticking to this empty terminology, these persons had in fact for many hours already been safely on board an Australian border protection vessel. Why didn't they say so? Isn't it appropriate promptly to inform the public when a maritime rescue operation has been successful?
The use of the evasive term 'accounted for' caused me great concern. There are five known cases of asylum seekers drowning off their own boats, after their boats had been taken into custody by Australian border protection vessels. During the 2001 Operation Relex period, there was SIEV 10 (a fatal sinking from a cooking stove fire) and SIEV 7 (unexplained deaths during towback). SIEV 4 was a near-death case of a boat that foundered without warning with all its passengers and an Australian boarding party from HMAS Adelaide on board.
Under Labor: SIEV 36 exploded with an Australian boarding party on board, causing deaths. And on 13 and 16 July 2013, there were two more events, SIEV 784 and SIEV 794, involving deaths from boats already in Australian custody. It is reasonable to conclude that people from these boats are never truly safe until offloaded either onto a safe Australian vessel or at Christmas Island.
The next day, Morrison issued an embarrassing clarification on what had happened to the (as he now admitted) 'rescued' passengers: 'In the best interests of the safety of the passengers and crew of the rescued vessel and the Australian vessel that has been rendering assistance, earlier this morning I requested Lieut-General Campbell to transfer the persons rescued ... to Christmas Island for rapid onward transfer to Manus Island or Nauru.'
By this time, there had been extensive Australian media reporting sourced from Jakarta on what had happened since the boat had sent its first distress call to Australian authorities, reporting engine failure, when it was 43 miles from Java, in international waters and in the Indonesian SAR zone which extends to Christmas Island.
An Australian vessel went to inspect, and asked