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People smugglers and queue jumpers

Posted by: Michael Smith | 8 October, 2008 - 10:51 AM

Last week a boat carrying 14 people was intercepted by the Royal Australian Navy at Ashmore Reef. The boat's crew were Indonesians and it was carrying Iranian and Afghani alleged refugees seeking asylum in Australia. It had sailed from Indonesian West Timor.

Our legal affairs expert and former head of the National Crime Authority Peter Faris QC said on air on Friday that the boat signalled the first tentative steps by organised Indonesian crime gangs testing the Rudd Government. He said that the Rudd government's new policy signalled an open door for queue jumpers and people smugglers. Under the Rudd Government's policy Australia no longer sends asylum seekers to other countries such as Nauru for processing - instead they must spend as little time in detention as possible and if they're refugees, be given permanent visas and then flown to Australia to be resettled at the taxpayer's expense.

Not surprisingly the Immigration Minister Chris Evans disagrees with Faris and me. He said last week that this was not the start of more arrivals. He was dead wrong.

Yesterday I reported that a second boat arrived - just sailed right up to one of our offshore oil rigs. It came alongside the Front Puffin oil facility - 700km west of Darwin at 11.50am. How can a foreign boat, with God knows what on board just sail right up to a multi-million dollar oil facility and tie up without our authorities knowing about it? This second boat contained 14 passengers and 3 crew. Again they were alleged Indonesian people-smugglers carrying alleged refugees from the Middle-East. They spent the day at the oil rig until 6pm when the navy arrived and took them to Christmas Island.

Yesterday, Indonesia's Director General of Immigration Maroloan Bariming said Australia's new policy may "give better opportunities for people smugglers."

My contacts in law enforcement say privately that criminal networks in Indonesia are aware of the changes the Rudd government has made and they're exploiting them. They track reports on the internet - and then use the information from those reports to tout for business with queue-jumpers from the Middle-East.

We've got a real problem here. The criminal networks in Indonesia are back in business. They're exploiting perceived weakness in Australia's policy. We need to send them a very firm message - don't bother trying us out. There must be no easy ride into Australia for criminal networks and queue-jumpers

Blog comments

'give better opportunities for people smugglers' - ha send em straight to naru ...

sandwich Wednesday 8 October, 2008 - 11:30 AM
Michael, thanks for fighting for our rights. You're wonderful! The Health Minister carries around a Journo's code of conduct, yet he did not have a copy of the Qld Health code of conduct available when interviewed on the horror story of rape in the north.....hmmmm!

Sydney Thursday 9 October, 2008 - 6:30 PM