Oliver Laughland theguardian.com, Thursday 27 March 2014
Senators critical of 'blanket public interest immunity claims' used to avoid giving details about Operation Sovereign Borders
The commander of Operation Sovereign Borders, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, during a Senate estimates hearing. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AAP
It may be impossible for the government to safely pursue its policy of turning back boats carrying asylum seekers without crossing into Indonesia’s territorial waters, a Senate inquiry into six Australian naval incursions has found.
On Thursday the foreign affairs, defence and trade committee released its report into the incursions, which occurred between December 2013 and January 2014 and were said to have been an inadvertent result of “miscalculations” about Indonesia’s boundaries.
The report found that operating a safe turnback operation – which the government has required the navy to do – outside the 12 nautical mile boundary might not be possible.
“Ensuring the safety of crew and asylum seekers while turning back or towing back vessels outside of 12 nautical miles from Indonesia's archipelagic baseline may not be an achievable policy goal, depending on the prevailing conditions, the seaworthiness of vessels and the possible use of lifeboats,” the report said.
The committee is also critical of what it describes as “blanket public interest immunity claims” used by the minister for immigration, Scott Morrison, to avoid providing some details about the working of the Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB) policy.
During an inquiry hearing last Friday key OSB personnel used public interest immunity claims to deflect a number of questions posed by the panel, including whether OSB naval vessels turned off their GPS during operations.
The report calls on the immigration minister to provide a justification for the use of public interest immunity.
At the hearing last Friday the OSB commander, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell ,conceded that Australia did not have the capacity to continuously monitor all its naval vessels.
A public version of the customs and navy inquiry into the six incursions ruled out any deliberate incursion into Indonesian territorial waters and said the responsibility for navigation had been “devolved” to vessel commanders.
“On each occasion the incursion was inadvertent in that each arose from incorrect calculation of the boundaries of Indonesian waters rather than as a deliberate action or navigational error,” the report states.
The committee recommended that the confidential version of the report be made public with suitable redactions.
The Greens immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, who sits on the committee, expressed concern at the potential conflict of purposes found in the report, saying it made the policy of turnbacks “unworkable”.
“Cutting a leaky wooden boat adrift more than 12 miles from a coastline that you can’t see is inherently dangerous,” she said.
“The government’s refusal to explain what happened with these incursions again shows how Operation Sovereign Borders has become Operation Blame the Soldiers.”
