Directive from Peter Dutton that information be covered by public interest immunity means many questions remain unanswered during Senate inquiry

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Border force officials have confirmed that the agency has turned back 23 vessels since Operation Sovereign Borders began, but they decline to say whether immigration officials paid people smugglers to reroute vessels.

The commander of the operation, Maj Gen Andrew Bottrell, and the head of the department of immigration (which oversees border force), Michael Pezzullo, fronted a Senate committee on Friday to answer questions about claims Australian officials had paid people smugglers to turn their vessels back to Indonesia in May 2015.



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It is alleged officials paid people smugglers a total of $US32,000 to reroute asylum seekers from their destination, New Zealand, back to their point of departure.

A directive from the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, that the information be covered by public interest immunity meant that neither Pezzullo nor Bottrell would answer any any of the numerous questions put by senators relating to the alleged payments.

“We are neither confirming nor denying it. We’re not commenting on it,” Pezzullo said. “We have no comment on that. At all.”

He allayed concerns that Australia had acted beyond the scope of domestic and international law, but would not provide specifics, saying senators would just have to take his word on the matter.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Pezzullo (left) and Maj Gen Andrew Bottrell at the Senate inquiry in Canberra on Friday. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/EPA

The Labor senator Katy Gallagher expressed frustration at the committee’s inability to extract answers from the senior immigration officials, saying it was hindering the parliament’s ability to keep government accountable.

“The parliament isn’t being kept informed, so how can we do our job?” she asked.

Bottrell said any information “that may give people smugglers a better understanding of our operations will not be discussed.”

“We have information superiority over the people smugglers,” he said. “It is my intention to keep it that way.”

He did reveal that 23 vessels had been involved in return operations, including boat turnbacks, since the Coalition came to power in September 2013.

“There remains a persistent number of attempts, all of which have failed over the last year and a half,” he said.

Turning boats around where it is safe to do so is the cornerstone of the government’s Operation Sovereign Borders policy, and has contributed to the oft-touted claims that the Coalition has managed to stop the asylum boats.

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the revelation that 23 return operations had been conducted proved people were still making the journey to Australia by boat.

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“Turnbacks are happening on a regular basis,” Hanson-Young said. “It really begs the question: have the boats stopped? Well according to the head of Operation Sovereign Borders, no they haven’t. They’re being turned around, but they haven’t stopped coming here.”

Neither Bottrell nor Pezzullo would be drawn on the methods used to turn back the boats, saying the information was operationally sensitive.

Amnesty International had conducted an investigation into allegations people smugglers had been paid to send vessels back, soon after they emerged in June last year.

The final report into the matter was presented to the government in October, and took into account evidence from the 62 adult asylum seekers aboard a vessel that had been turned back, the boat’s crew, Indonesian police, Customs and government officials. The human rights organisation also saw the cash that allegedly exchanged hands.

The document found that the boat containing 65 asylum seekers from Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had left Indonesia in May, bound for New Zealand. It was intercepted in international waters by Australian authorities, who transferred the asylum seekers on to two smaller vessels and sent them to Rote Island in Indonesia.

The asylum seekers made several claims against Australian authorities, including that they had been forced to wait overnight on the deck of their original boat, which was bigger and in better condition than the two smaller ones they were transferred to, and that authorities took medicines off them.

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Bottrell denied any wrongdoing by Operation Sovereign Borders staff.

“I strongly reject any suggestion that we would or have put anyone in harm’s way,” he said.

But he confirmed the asylum seekers had been housed on the deck of their original boat during rough weather.

“Yes, that did occur,” he told the committee. “We provided them with lifejackets.”

Bottrell said the vessel was in bad shape and the asylum seekers were kept on deck because it would have been easier to rescue them from there if the boat was in distress.

“The safety of individuals was our first concern,” he said.



Australian authorities provided assistance to the vessel after a request from the vessel’s master, Bottrell said. Authorities had been aware of the vessel’s trajectory and the condition it was in, he said.

The account conflicts with what Amnesty had in its report.

“All of the people we interviewed denied that they were in distress,” the refugee coordinator of Amnesty International Australia, Graham Thom, told the committee.

The LNP senator Ian Macdonald asked: “You’re taking the word of people who paid people smugglers over the word of [highly-regarded] Australian service personnel?”

Thom replied: “That is the only evidence available.”

He said Amnesty was “deeply concerned” that the secrecy over the incident had ensured it remained “out of sight, out of mind”, and reiterated that a royal commission was needed.

Two inquiries into what happened are in progress. The first, by the Australian federal police, looks at whether payments were made to people smugglers, and the second, by the border force, investigates claims of ill-treatment by its staff.

Hanson-Young wants both inquiries to be made public upon completion.

“It’s just not acceptable that the government has not been upfront about this,” she said. “$32,000 worth of cash came from somewhere. There’s no ATMs floating out on the high seas.”