Mr Abbott said the new structure would provide a unified chain-of-command, with the three-star commander reporting directly to the immigration minister. This would be an unusual arrangement. Typically, senior ranks report to the CDF General Hurley, who is in turn answerable to the defence minister. The Coalition said the cost of establishing the taskforce would be $10 million, however, it did not details the costs of implementing other parts of the policy. ''The crisis on our borders has become a national emergency,'' he told reporters in Brisbane. He said the present system was disjointed, citing the cases of alleged people-smuggler Captain Emad and the case of Egyptian asylum-seeker Sayed Ahmed Abdellatif – claims against whom have lately been shown incorrect.

General Hurley issued a swift statement Thursday morning saying that contrary to some media reporting, he had not provided any advice or recommendations on the Coalition's policy. His role was to implement the policies of the government of the day, he said. He also stressed that Operation Resolute, the border protection operation that is currently using about 500 Defence personnel, was ''difficult, dangerous and unrelenting''. The Coalition policy document released on Thursday states: ''Our current disjointed institutional arrangements within government do not provide an optimal structure for securing our borders. ''There must be one person responsible with all the necessary resources of government at his or her command. ''The scale of this problem requires the discipline and focus of a targeted military operation, placed under a single operational and ministerial command.''

The Coalition would finalise the protocols for turning back boats ''where it is safe to do so'' within the first 100 days of government. In that time it would also lease and deploy extra vessels to relieve the Navy's patrol vessels of asylum-seeker transfers. And it would reintroduce the Howard-era temporary protection visas. In the first 100 days it says it will also start increasing capacity at offshore detention centres and members of the Coalition frontbench will visit Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nauru and Papua New Guinea to discuss ''operational matters''. Mr Abbott said the Coalition would ''salvage what they could'' of the PNG solution announced last week by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd but denied the move was an admission that stopping the boats completely was an impossible task. Coalition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said making border protection enforcement a military operation reflected the severity of the problem.

''This is a military led mission that brings a sense of urgency,'' he said. ''Using our fleets as a taxi service has to end.'' The Coalition says it has received ''informal'' advice from senior serving Defence personnel as well as more detailed help from retired military members. Retired Army Major-General Jim Molan has been closely advising the Coalition on its policy and helped launch the plan in Brisbane. Greens Senator Christine Milne, speaking in Brisbane on Thursday was scathing of Mr Abbott's announcement and Mr Rudd's PNG proposal.

''It's not politics, it's pure persecution which is coming from the Prime Minister and his PNG proposition,'' she told reporters. ''And now Tony Abbott is trying to go even further and using language around war, bringing in generals and the like.'' Senator Milne said both parties had forgotten that asylum seekers were people. ''We need to change our attitude here, deterrence does not work.'' Loading

She said a regional agreement worked out through diplomacy was needed to find safer pathways to Australia for asylum seekers in Indonesia. Follow the National Times on Twitter