January 11, 2025
Labor will vastly increase aerial surveillance of the nation's coasts and scale up its capacity for charter flights to Nauru, following a sharp increase in illegal asylum seeker boats reaching Australia in the past 18 months.
The Weekend Australian can reveal the Albanese government is weighing bids from some of the world's biggest private sector national-security operators for increased aerial patrols.
At the same time, the Home Affairs Department has realised the frequency of charter flights required to take newly arrived asylum seekers to Nauru has outgrown the modest contract in place before the 2022 election.
A rewritten, bigger contract for transporting asylum seekers to the Pacific island and in some cases home or to a resettlement country is out for tender.
The successful bidder must dedicate a fully crewed, long range jet with at least 180 passenger seats to fly in and out of Nauru at short notice. The jet must have "limited markings and no branding in order to maintain a discreet profile".
The rush of asylum-seeker vessels to Australia began in September 2023, when a boat carrying 11 people was intercepted in Australian waters and the passengers flown to Nauru. That was the first time in nine years Australia had sent asylum seekers to the Pacific island for processing.
Since then, at least 15 more boats carrying 213 people have reached Australian waters or land.
The figure could be higher because Operation Sovereign Borders is yet to report arrivals for December and because it does not report the number of people aboard boats with fewer than five passengers. While some of the new arrivals were turned back or flown back immediately, 101 remain on Nauru where they are permitted to work.
The bill for private charter flights for asylum seekers reduced four times to about a quarter the original cost after the Coalition's Operation Sovereign Borders policies took effect.
The number of asylum seekers who arrived by boat in Australia fell from 20,587 in 2013 the year Tony Abbott ousted Kevin Rudd as prime minister to zero in 2021.
The value of the contract for flights taking asylum seekers to offshore processing and back to their country of origin was expected to be as high as $195.6m between 2019 and 2023. Ultimately, because so few flights were needed, the government paid only $47.65m to SkyTraders.
However, Australia now needs a bigger contract for transporting asylum seekers. In 2023-24, the current contractors provided a total of 62 charter flights for asylum seekers who arrived by boat.
Some journeys took 35 hours with stops. A tender process for that new contract is underway.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the new contract would be much more expensive.
"The Coalition stopped the boats and saved taxpayers millions in fewer transfer flights," Senator Paterson said.
"Under Labor's watered-down operation sovereign borders, the boats are back and transfer flight costs are blowing out by millions.
Australians are paying the price for Labor's weakness on border protection."
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke rejected suggestions of a surge in asylum-seekers. "There hasn't been a single successful people smuggling venture for many years," he said on Friday night. "The only people who claim otherwise are Liberals, Nationals and people smugglers."
By far the biggest change in border control ahead of the federal election will be in aerial surveillance after a government audit found successive governments had been paying for surveillance not carried out.
Global firms considered for Home Affairs' new aerial-surveillance contract are understood to include current provider Leidos, a national- security and health company that took over the contract when it purchased Cobham in 2022.
Another firm thought to be in the running is Canada's PAL Aerospace, which undertakes aerial surveillance worldwide, including for the Canadian, British, Netherlands and Dutch Caribbean coast guards.
The Australian National Audit Office found the nation's civil maritime surveillance services contract was mismanaged between 2008 and 2020 and the cost blew out by 29 per cent even though the government was not getting what it paid for.
The full complement of qualified aircrew required under the contract had never been provided, the audit found. On average over the life of the contract to December 31, 2020, the number of qualified aircrew was 33 per cent below that contracted. The lack of aircrew has been a key contributing factor to shortfalls in surveillance hours and missions flown.
The audit office concluded that Home Affairs may have paid $87m in monthly service charges for crew numbers it did not receive. Figures provided by Australian Border Force to Senate estimates last November show annual aerial surveillance reduced incrementally between July 2020 and last June from 16,005 hours to 12,579 hours.
However, Senate estimates has received evidence that the aerial patrols have been rising since.
Aerial surveillance off Australia's north coast and near the territories of Christmas and Cocos islands began declining well before September 2023, when the pace of boat arrivals picked up. Policy observers note privately that reduced aerial surveillance hours made the job much harder for Operation Sovereign Borders and Australian Border Force officials in the second half of 2023 when they were on heightened alert for peoplesmuggling ventures to Australia.
They were bracing for boats due to intelligence about a rush of asylum seekers into Indonesia and a surge in illegal maritime activity across Southeast Asia.
Australian officials were aware of new activity among Rohingya, Bangladeshi, Afghan and Pakistani asylum seekers, whom regional authorities feared were being targeted by people smugglers operating in Indonesia and neighbouring countries.
Operation Sovereign Borders, ABF and Home Affairs also ramped up communications campaigns and operations in the region following the High Court ruling that asylum seekers without prospect of being settled elsewhere including high-risk offenders could no longer be held in indefinite detention.
However, three peoplesmuggling ventures made it to the West Australian mainland undetected between November 2023 and April last year. The Albanese government was forced to break with a long-established protocol of not confirming asylum boat arrivals because the men were walking around on the mainland talking to locals.
Photographs of one group having a barbecue with their host at a campsite north of Broome was awkward for Australian Border Force, which did not know they had arrived until the barbecue host phoned police and asked them to come and get them.
On Friday, an ABF spokesman said Home Affairs acknowledged what the audit found about past management of the aerial-surveillance contract and was making changes as recommended. These included "stronger assurance arrangements for monitoring of mission performance".
