Pearls and Irritations

Reposted from 23/09/2015

Tony Abbott did not stop the boats

In this blog yesterday (22 September 2015) we pointed out that Tony Abbott kept the door open for tens of thousands of boat arrivals by opposing legislation that would have enabled implementation of the Malaysia Arrangement in September 2011. By this action, he helped turn on the green light for people smugglers.

Moreover, the data just does not support the claim that, after coming to power in September 2013, Tony Abbott “stopped the boats”. The media uncritically accepted the Coalition’s line in the confused period of the changeover of governments and in the context of drama and secrecy surrounding a small number of boat turn-backs.

The data shows that the downward trend in boat arrivals began in August 2013. By October and November 2013 maritime asylum seeker arrivals had dropped by 90% compared to the corresponding two months in 2012 (547 arrivals versus 5115 arrivals). These reductions occurred well before the first boat turnaround by the Coalition Government on 19 December 2013. See table below:

Number of illegal maritime arrivals who arrived in Australia by month            (1 January 2011 to 31 December 2014), by port arrival date.

The source of this data is the Senate Select Committee on the Recent Allegations relating to Conditions and Circumstances at the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru: Submission 31 from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP). Crew are excluded. 

Note that the table refers to the number of ‘Illegal’ Maritime Arrivals (IMAs). ‘Illegals’ is not a term that we think is appropriate, but the term is used in the material from DIBP.

Three measures put in place by the Labor Government before the election caused the dramatic fall in the number arrivals, (allowing for a short time lag).

The first was “enhanced screening” of Sri Lankans and quick return of non-refugees to Sri Lanka.

The second was a decision by Indonesia, at Australia’s urging, that Iranians could not enter Indonesia without visas.

The third and most important was the announcement by Kevin Rudd on the 19 July 2013 that in future any persons coming by boat, who were found to be refugees, would not be settled in Australia. We may argue about the wisdom of that policy, but it effectively crippled the people-smugglers.

Fortuitously for the Abbott Government when it was sworn in on 18 September 2013, the flow of maritime arrivals was well on its way to being finished as a result of measures already taken.

By the time Operation Sovereign Borders geared up for its first boat turn-back on 19 December 2013, the number of boats was down from 48 in July to 7 in December.

Operation Sovereign Borders was applied to the “tail end” of a phenomenon that had largely been stopped. The game-changer was Kevin Rudd’s announcement in July 2013.

Arguably, boat turn backs would not have been ‘successful’ at all without the July 2013 decision. For example, the Navy and Customs were able to turn back three boats in December 2013. It’s hard to believe that it would have been physically possible to turn back 48 boats if they had continued to arrive at the monthly rate that occurred in July 2013 and that Indonesia would have quietly acquiesced.

Tony Abbott’s role in “stopping the boats” was at the margins and vastly overrated.

John Menadue was Secretary, Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs 1980-83. Peter Hughes was a senior officer in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for 30 years until he retired as Deputy Secretary in 2011.

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