April 8, 2024
A lack of drones aiding border patrol efforts has left a big gap in surveillance efforts, the Opposition claims, after a third boat in five months reached West Australian shores.
But Anthony Albanese insisted his Government's running of Operation Sovereign Borders was working as intended, with anyone who made it to Aus CONTINUED PAGE 4
tralia swiftly sent to offshore processing.
A group of nine people, understood to be Chinese, turned up at the Mungalalu-Truscott Airbase in the far north Kimberley on Friday afternoon. A 10th man was found on Sunday after becoming separated from the group.
It's understood the group is now at the offshore immigration processing centre in Nauru.
The Prime Minister would not comment on the group when pressed about the border crisis.
"We want to make it very, very clear that there is no incentive (for) coming to Australia by boat, that people won't be allowed to settle here because we don't want people risking their lives and we also don't want the quite evil trade of people smuggling to be able to profit from such activity," he said.
Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson pointed to drops in the number of air and sea patrol hours over the previous financial year.
"They're not delivering the maritime surveillance and air surveillance that we need and it's not a surprise that the boats are slipping through," he said.
He raised the suggestion of drones for patrols with Australian Border Force officials during estimates hearings last October.
Operation Sovereign Borders commander Rear Admiral Justin Jones said at the time uncrewed flights could be a longer term solution but there were no mature technologies available for similar cost now.
"We've got this big gap in aerial surveillance, which I think is a huge problem," Senator Paterson said. The Government is considering ways to ramp up patrols, with a source saying it was an ever-evolving conversation.
There has also been a huge increase in illegal fishing boats seized in the area over the past year. Australian fishers have recounted seeing boats laden with people and finding rubbish with Indonesian writing on remote islands indicating people may be camping there.
The Home Affairs annual report last year showed that in 2022-23 marine patrol days fell by 6.6 per cent on the previous year and flying hours for aerial surveillance were down by 14.2 per cent. It said this was largely due to illness among pilots and unexpected maintenance on boats.
The 2021-22 patrol hours were also down, but patrols in 2020-21 were higher than in years prior.