With the appearance of a few asylum seekers on some of the most remote shorelines in Western Australia, customary hysteria began to be tapped for political gain.
Opposition Coalition leader Peter Dutton wondered how they could have arrived undetected. 鈥淭he government has all sorts of problems,鈥 he聽. 鈥淚t鈥檚 clear that [Labor doesn鈥檛] have the same surveillance in place that we had when we were in government.鈥
The 2022-3 Australia Border Force (ABF) annual report had noted a reduction of 鈥渕aritime patrol days鈥 by 6% and aerial patrols by 14%, the result of vessel maintenance, personnel shortages and logistical difficulties when operating in remote parts off the coast.
Overall, the ABF鈥檚 costs have been adjusted to account for the fact that the 2022-3 budget was, as Home Affairs department chief finance officer Stephanie Cargill聽聽last May, 鈥渙verspent鈥.
ABF chief Michael Outram has聽聽Dutton for his suggestion that there had been funding cuts. 鈥淏order Force funding is currently the highest it鈥檚 been since its establishment in 2015 and in the last year, the ABF has received additional funding totalling hundreds of millions of dollars, to support maritime and land-based operations.鈥
There has not been any softening of the brutal policy that presumptively and prematurely judges undocumented naval arrivals as illegal.
As the ABF statement on the arrivals聽, with customary severity: 鈥淎ustralia鈥檚 tough border protection policies means that no one who travels unauthorised by boat will ever be allowed to settle permanently in Australia. The only way to travel to Australia is legally, with an Australian visa.鈥
The dubious rationale for maintaining the policy, known as Operation Sovereign Borders, is still in place.
鈥淎ustralia,鈥 the ABF explains, 鈥渞emains committed to protecting its borders, stamping out people smuggling and preventing vulnerable people from risking their lives on futile journeys. The people smuggling business model is built on the exploitation of information and selling lies to vulnerable people who will give up everything to risk their lives at sea.鈥
Rear Admiral Brett Sonter, who leads Operation Sovereign Borders, had also聽聽that nothing has changed.
鈥淭he mission of Operation Sovereign Borders remains the same today as it was when it was established in 2013: protect Australia鈥檚 borders, combat people smuggling in our region, and importantly, prevent people from risking their lives at sea.鈥
To suggest otherwise would create an 鈥渁lternative narrative鈥 susceptible to exploitation 鈥渂y criminal people smugglers to deceive potential irregular immigrants and convince them to risk their lives and travel to Australia by boat鈥.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese decided to give Dutton a parliamentary scalding by suggesting that he was 鈥渏ust full of nonsense鈥 and that he 鈥渟hould stop being a cheer squad for people, encouraging people smuggling鈥.
Such 鈥渂usiness models鈥, as they are derisively and demagogically called, are the natural consequence of a need to flee.
It is a need that is being punished globally by wealthier states less than keen to accept asylum seekers.
Canberra鈥檚 savage approach to asylum seekers 鈥斅爊on-settlement in Australia of those eventually found to be refugees and detaining individuals in concentration camps in the Pacific 鈥斅爃as become the envy of border protection fetishists.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, for instance, dreams of an Australia-styled solution that will involve 鈥渢urning the boats back鈥 and deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Unfortunately for him, an army of lawyers and judges have frustrated his vision.
The border fetishists also make a crucial omission: the people smugglers, who are of all stripes of opportunism, are merely facilitating the provisions of the United Nations Refugee Convention.
The Convention, to which Australia is a signatory, states that asylum seekers should not be discriminated against on the basis of how they arrive, or their backgrounds.
It is high time that bipartisan support for such a cruel policy came to an end.
[Binoy Kampmark lectures at RMIT University.]