Most jarring is the refusal to confirm that the government has been turning or towing back asylum-seeker boats - a key election pledge - or even to commit to revealing past operations once the boats have stopped. The secrecy has at times become the stuff of ridicule, for instance when Morrison's office refused even to confirm whether he would continue to give regular weekly briefings. Now, with the government stepping up operations in recent weeks, with boat turn-backs and sending asylum seekers back to Indonesia on lifeboats, secrecy is in the spotlight and under pressure. Asylum seekers have accused the navy of abuse and Australia has repeatedly entered Indonesian waters while carrying out the unacknowledged operations. Meanwhile, detainees on Christmas Island have gone on hunger strikes and sewed their lips together - also the subject of an information clampdown. From the start, the Abbott government has bet on the fact that if it stops the boats, most Australians aren't too fussed about the details. It was a fair bet assuming everything went smoothly. But last week, the government was forced to admit that Australian navy and customs ships had inadvertently strayed into Indonesian waters multiple times in recent weeks. It is no small thing. As Dave McRae, an Indonesia expert at the Lowy Institute put it: ''The swift apology from the Australian government shows they are aware that Australian vessels entering Indonesian waters is very serious.''

Fairfax Media understands that at least some of these incursions happened while asylum seekers were being turned back to Indonesia, including an incident in which 56 asylum seekers and two crew were sent back by navy and customs to Indonesia on a specially purchased lifeboat. This raises the stakes with Jakarta, given turn-backs are the policy it has repeatedly warned against. The government has ordered an inquiry into how the incursions happened, but is leaving it up to the Chief of the Defence Force, David Hurley, and the Customs and Border Protection CEO Michael Pezzullo to decide whether the report is made public. If it is released without crippling redactions, it will necessarily confirm that boat turn-backs have been happening. Given the seriousness of the blunders, there will be considerable pressure for public release. Hot on the heels of the territorial incursions, asylum seekers gained attention with claims navy sailors had forced them to hold the hot muffler of their boat engine, causing burns to their hands. The claims are at best unsubstantiated, at worst downright implausible, but the episode has raised doubts as to why the navy was not allowed to rebut in as much detail as it could. Thanks to the official silence on boat turn-backs, Morrison, Campbell, Hurley and Chief of Navy Ray Griggs were all in the awkward position of denying the episode took place without being able to acknowledge there was a boat at all.

Griggs, who had earlier made an impassioned statement defending his people but not referring to any specific incident, ended up using Twitter to reject the hand-burning claims. Former foreign minister Bob Carr - who takes a tough line on border protection by Labor standards - argues navy deserved the chance to properly defend itself but was hamstrung by the government's secrecy. ''The government has been hoist with its own petard. Its obsession with secrecy has left the Defence Force unable to rebut allegations against their competence and capacity. Again, open government is the best government,'' he said. Some in navy are known to favour having journalists on border protection missions - so-called media ''embeds'' of the kind General Campbell praised in his paper last year. At the very least, such scrutiny would scotch the kind of abuse claims that have surfaced this week. James Brown, a former soldier and now military fellow at the Lowy Institute, notes that media have been embedded in Afghanistan even with the clandestine special forces.

''The media are rightly sceptical about why journalists can be embedded with the SAS in Afghanistan but not with the navy in Australian waters,'' he said. ''The government has a clear mandate to stop the boats, but now risks severing trust that has been built over years between the military and the media. It's highly unlikely that navy personnel mistreated illegal entrants, but uncritical media reporting of such allegations is the blowback to navy from the intense secrecy imposed on their operations.'' Indeed, Tony Abbott may have compared border protection to a war, but by many measures the war in Afghanistan was more open than the war against the people-smugglers. Many Afghanistan operations were reported by Defence in detail after they happened. Not everyone buys the idea that navy was boxed in. Peter Leahy, former chief of army and now director of the National Security Institute at the University of Canberra, says Griggs' Twitter denial should be enough, irrespective of how much detail the navy was able to give. ''These are professionals, they're well trained, they're part of a values-driven organisation. They're honourable men and women trying to do the best by Australia and the refugees. And I for one trust them,'' he said.

Then there is the secrecy over detention centres, notably Christmas Island, where the past few weeks have seen protests including hunger strikes and self harm such as lip-sewing. The former Howard government, which set the benchmark for toughness on asylum-seeker policy, provided information about such protests. Morrison by contrast refuses even to confirm cases of self-harm are happening, saying to do so would encourage more behaviour of the kind. But Monash University psychologist Louise Newman said hiding the incidence of self-harm would breed hopelessness and worsen the problem. ''You can't make false promises of a positive outcome because that can't be offered at the moment, but engagement can stop them escalating - these are basic psychological principles.'' So where does the insistence on secrecy stem from? When it comes to operations at sea, Campbell, a highly respected soldier regarded as one of the intellectuals among the senior brass and a decent man to boot, says he doesn't want to advantage people-smugglers by arming them with tactical information.

Refugee advocates don't buy that. Paul Power, CEO of the Refugee Council of Australia, says genuine national security might warrant government secrecy, but this isn't one of those situations. ''It shouldn't be OK that people are much less confident that they know what the government is doing on their behalf,'' he said. ''They're promoting this as a military-style operation but they're not operating against a military force.'' Sensitivities in Jakarta clearly play a role. Neil James of the Australia Defence Association points out we can't ''rub Jakarta's nose'' in the fact we're turning back boats against its wishes. James believes the motives for secrecy around turn-backs breaks down to five parts operational, four parts diplomatic, and just one part political convenience for the government. It's worth noting that the Abbott government is working against its own political interests by refusing to confirm it has turned boats back. Indeed, Labor operatives have professed bewilderment that the government isn't singing this fulfilled promise from the rooftops. But there is always some political benefit in not having to explain how the proverbial sausage is made. Word has got out that boats have been turned back.

The government can say it's getting the job done without having to explain the messy detail - a stance that will resonate with many voters. Loading The catch, as we have started to see in recent weeks, is that if the government is not controlling the information, somebody else is. As former Navy Commodore Sam Bateman wrote in September in remarks that already seem prescient: ''When the leaks about actual operations occur, the rumours may do more harm to Australia's international image than the actual facts.''