Judge people by what they do, not what they say. The Labor government can blither all they want that they’re not about to repeat their disastrous borders mistakes, but their actions are clearly telling us otherwise. When the navy is being scrambled to the northern waters, we know that they know that it’s all about to hit the fan again.
The navy has revealed it is providing “surge” support including more ships and surveillance aircraft to Australia’s northern waters, amid concerns that the government’s changes to temporary protection visas for asylum seekers could trigger a resumption in people-smuggling activities.
Vice Admiral David Johnston told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday night that the Australian Defence Force had received a formal request from the commander of Operation Sovereign Borders for extra defence assets to patrol Australia’s northern maritime approaches.
It is understood that this involved diverting surveillance aircraft and ships from other exercises to Operation Resolute to assist and support border patrols.
Remember when Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard smirked that there was no way their softening of John Howard’s border protections would lead to a surge in illegal boats? In less than three years, we went from no boats to boats arriving daily. From a single person in immigration detention, to 50,000. To over a thousand deaths at sea.
Who in their right minds doesn’t think it’s all going to happen, exactly the same, again?
Certainly the people on the water are well aware.
Vice Admiral Johnston would not reveal whether the request was made in response to concerns in Operation Sovereign Borders command of an increase in people-smuggling ventures as a result of the government’s effective axing of TPVs.
Even the public servants in Canberra could see it coming.
The Albanese government was warned that scrapping temporary protection visas could weaken Operation Sovereign Borders because “changes to any single element (of the operation) … may result in a weakening of the overall denial and deterrence effects”.
The advice was contained in the incoming government brief prepared by the Department of Home Affairs, which found that “Temporary Protection (subclass 785) Visas (TPVs)” were a complementary policy measure that supported Operation Sovereign Borders.
So could the people smugglers.
By Monday, news of the policy change had already begun to pique the interest of people-smuggling networks in Asia, with one operator in Sri Lanka telling The Australian he would be speaking with contacts in Australia about a potential new asylum voyage.
The Australian
What did Anthony Albanese expect, when with the stroke of a pen, he opened the floodgates to 20,000 illegal immigrants to stay permanently, with full welfare benefits — and to bring in hundreds of thousands of their family members as well.
Then there’s the government “forgetting” to renew Nauru’s legal status as an offshore processing centre.
They’re not fooling anyone. Least of all the criminal people smugglers and their cashed-up clients.