John Menadue. A graph on boat arrivals for lazy journalists.

Jul 26, 2015

I have reposted below an article I wrote on 8 December last year pointing out that Tony Abbott did not stop the boats. But the debate proceeds, assisted by journalists who still claim that Tony Abbott stopped the boats. He didn’t. 

So that my argument can be better understood, see the graph below which reveals quite clearly that there was a dramatic fall in boat arrivals from July 2013 when Kevin Rudd announced the policy that future boat arrivals would not be settled in Australia. We may argue about the wisdom of this policy, but it effectively stopped the boats. There is a current debate about turn-backs of boats, but they were only a marginal influence in stopping the flow of boat arrivals.

Boat People Arrivals

Not only did Tony Abbott not stop the boats, but he, together with the Greens was responsible for the dramatic increase in boat arrival numbers after the rejection of the Malaysian arrangement in August 2011. At that time, irregular maritime arrivals were running at less than 300 per month. That increased to over 4,000 in July 2013 when the Rudd Government acted. For further background see repost below,

Repost from 8 December 2014.

The data just does not support the never-ending claims by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison that they stopped the boats. The under-resourced and uncritical media accepts the Coalition’s line.

I will come to the recent data, but first the evidence is clear that action by the Coalition along with the Greens in the Senate to prevent amendments to the Migration Act greatly assisted people-smugglers and boat arrivals from 2011 onwards.

The rejection of the arrangement with Malaysia by the High Court started the rot. The High Court decision may have been sound in law, but it had powerful consequences for boat arrivals. The arrangement with Malaysia needed improvement but it did provide guarantees that Malaysia had never provided before. The UNHCR was prepared to actively cooperate. When the High Court rejected the Malaysian arrangement in August 2011, irregular maritime arrivals were running at less than 300 per month. That number increased to 1200 by May 2012, and kept on rising.

The Labor  Government  attempted to amend the Migration Act to address the problems identified by the High Court but the Coalition together with the Greens blocked the amending legislation. They bashed Malaysia at every opportunity. The failure of the Malaysian arrangement sent a very clear message to people smugglers that boat arrivals would succeed. Boat arrivals were running at over 4,000 per month in July 2013.

The action by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison in association with the Greens triggered this dramatic increase in boat arrivals. Both Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison made it abundantly clear that they did not want to stop the boats with an arrangement such as that with Malaysia. They wanted to stop Labor stopping the boats. Their political intentions were revealed by WikiLeaks that reported that ‘a key Liberal Party strategist told the US embassy in 2009 that the more boats that come the better’. (SMH 10 December 2010). Scott Morrison became Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in December 2009.

Action by the Coalition in the Senate triggered a large increase in boat arrivals in 2012 and into 2013.

But did Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison really stop the boats when they came to power?

The data shows that the downward trend in boat arrivals occurred from July 2013, two months before the Coalition came to power. See data below.

2013 Boat people arrivals(excluding crew) Boats
January 2013 471 10
February 925 16
March 2455 37
April 3396 47
May 3315 47
June 2715 41
July 4145 47
Aug 1591 25
September 837 15
October 339 5
November 207 5
December 355 7

Source: Department of Immigration and Border Protection, and Australian Parliamentary Library.

What largely stopped the boats, although not completely, was the announcement by Kevin Rudd on the 19th July 2013 that in future any persons coming by boat and found to be a  refugee would not be settled in Australia. We may argue about the wisdom of that policy, but it effectively crippled the business case of the people-smugglers.

In the data above, there are undoubtedly some leads and lags and seasonal factors, but the data shows that the Rudd announcement of 19 July 2013 dramatically cut the number of boats and people arriving by boat. The major turnaround occurred between July and August, before the Coalition came to power.

As the Abbott Government was not sworn in until 18 September 2013, its policy on boats would also have had only marginal effect on September arrivals.

So between July and September, people arriving by boat fell from 4,145 to 837 and the number of boats fell from 47 to 15. The trend largely continued after that time.

Peter Hughes a former deputy secretary in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship put it this way in an article in the Canberra Times in late 2013. ‘The arrival of 546 asylum seekers in October and November 2013 represents only 14% of the number of arrivals for the corresponding months in 2012. This is a dramatic reduction … The announcement of long-term resettlement of refugees in Papua New Guinea and Nauru by the previous government has likely been decisive in changing the decision to travel to Australia on the part of those asylum seekers who have not yet handed over their money to a smuggler. ‘

The game-changer was Kevin Rudd’s announcement of 19 July 2013 on no resettlement in Australia for boat arrivals. It is also likely that tighter visa procedures on Indonesia’s part would have helped reduce the number of boat arrivals.  In effect the Rudd Government slammed the door although the boat turn a rounds pushed the final bolt home. In other words, if there was any doubt in the minds of people smugglers and asylum seekers trying to come by boat those doubts were removed.

The Abbott Government capitalised on a trend which the Rudd Government clearly started in July 2013.

Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have wrung every political advantage they could from boat arrivals. But the evidence is clear that they helped accelerate the numbers before they came to power and it was the action of the Rudd Government, before they came to power in September 2013 that put boat arrivals on a downward track

Operation Sovereign Borders has really been quite marginal and would not have been ‘successful’ without the July 2013 decision. Navy and Customs were able to turn a few boats around. This would have been impossible if boats had continued to arrive at 47 a month as they were in July 2013. OSB has been very high profile and very expensive – and offensive to Indonesia. But OSB has not been the main game.

The game-changer was Kevin Rudd’s announcement in July 2013.

Share and Enjoy !

Subscribe to John Menadue's Newsletter
Subscribe to John Menadue's Newsletter

 

Thank you for subscribing!