People smuggling is a national emergency that needs a senior military officer to control the response, the Coalition says.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has announced that a Coalition government will ask the defence force chief to appoint a three-star commander to lead a joint agency taskforce to deal with people smugglers and border protection.
Operation Sovereign Borders, as it would be known, would be established within 100 days of the Coalition taking government and would involve all 12 agencies with direct involvement in border security.
The military commander in charge would report directly to the immigration minister.
Within its first 100 days a Coalition Government would also finalise and issue the protocols for Operation Relex II to turn back asylum seeker boats when safe.
“This is one of the most serious external situations that we have faced in many a long year,” Mr Abbott said on launching the policy in Brisbane today.
“It must be tackled with decisiveness, with urgency, with the appropriate level of seriousness.
“That’s why we need to have a senior military officer in operational control of this very important national emergency.” Mr Abbott also pledged to quickly increase capacity at offshore processing centres.
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He said the Coalition would lease and deploy additional vessels so that border protection patrol vessels could be relieved of passenger transfers.
Outspoken retired Major General Jim Molan joined Mr Abbott for the announcement, endorsing the policy and saying it set the stage for success.
He said he’d been brought on board to advise the Opposition on how to conduct such operations.
“What I offer the Coalition is a check on feasibility,” he told reporters at the policy launch.
“The result is the Coalition, if elected, will be able to give more refined direction to the agencies and the agencies’ plans, when they come back for government approval, can be better understood.
“That thoroughness is far, far better than policy on the run.”
He noted Operation Sovereign Borders would be a military-led operation rather than a military operation.
“It’s certainly not an unusual circumstance for the military to be used in this way,” he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has already dismissed Mr Abbott’s new policy as another three word slogan: “Operation Sovereign something-or-other.”
Mr Abbott said that as a courtesy he had given Chief of Defence David Hurley and the Indonesian ambassador a heads-up about the announcement this morning. He rejected suggestions he should have consulted with General Hurley while developing the policy.
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General Hurley issued a statement saying that “contrary to media reporting” he did not advise Mr Abbott on the policy.
Mr Abbott said the coalition had informally consulted with serving officers as well as recently retired officers.
Asked about Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s claim that the Opposition had misrepresented his comments from a private briefing about control of foreign aid, Mr Abbott said he had a “good relationship” with Mr O’Neill.
Earlier this week the Opposition claimed Mr O’Neill had said he was now in control of Australia’s foreign aid money for PNG.
“What we’ve said … is based on Mr O’Neill’s public statements,” Mr Abbott said. “Yes we had a private meeting with Prime Minister O’Neill and what he said in private was consistent with what he said in public.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister Rudd says the Government won’t back down from its new hardline asylum-seeker policy, despite accusations it’s already floundering.
“We don’t intend to flinch, this is the right policy, this is the right message,” Mr Rudd told the Nine Network today.
Under the Federal Government’s deal with Papua New Guinea, announced last week, people arriving by boat will be denied resettlement in Australia, be taken to Manus Island for processing and be resettled in PNG if their refugee status is approved.
On Wednesday, nine people including an 18-month-old baby, four children and a pregnant woman, died and 189 people were rescued when an asylum seeker boat bound for Australia sank off the Indonesian fishing town of Cidaun in western Java.
Mr Rudd said he never expected the PNG announcement to immediately stop the boats and he had expected people smugglers to try to test the government’s resolve.
He said the Government needed to take a hard stand against people smuggling with the crisis in Syria potentially resulting in 1.8 million asylum seekers.
“Australia’s immigration policy, asylum-seeker policy is not chipped in stone.”
Mr Rudd again defended his decision to drop the Howard government’s Pacific solution after the 2007 election, but he acknowledged it should have been adjusted in 2009/10 when global circumstances changed.
He said the Australian Government was working with the PNG government to improve conditions on Manus island.
