Blame game begins after asylum boat tragedy
Updated 1 hour 30 minutes ago
Asylum seekers sit on what remains of their boat after it crashed into rocks. (Nine Network)
Australian authorities likely knew a doomed asylum seeker boat was headed for Christmas Island before it crashed, a refugee advocate says, as others blame government policies for the disaster.
It is estimated that up to 50 people may have died when the wooden fishing vessel slammed into rocks on Christmas Island in rough seas this morning.
Rescue crews and locals are still trying to save those who were thrown into the ocean off Flying Fish Cove, but it is unclear how many people were aboard the boat in the first place.
Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre says an investigation is needed to determine how the boat came so close to landing at Christmas Island.
"We have a huge surveillance operation. We've got AFP officers in Indonesia who ride the ferries between Malaysia and Indonesia who arrest people alongside the Indonesian police in hostels," she said.
"We have air surveillance, we have water surveillance, we have a very efficient border security operation out there.
"These people are not political. They are just there to see who's in the water, who needs help, how close they are to Australia and they absolutely know who is approaching our shoreline."
Ms Curr says if border security officials were aware of the vessel they should never have allowed it to approach Christmas Island in such rough seas.
"What happened that they allowed this boat to head towards Christmas Island, knowing there's a three to five-metre swell which would make it impossible for such a fragile fishing boat to land safely," she said.
It is understood some survivors have been rescued by boat and taken aboard a nearby Navy ship, while some of the bodies recovered are reportedly being taken by boat to Ethel Beach on the other side of the island where waters are calmer. .. <cont>
Sea scoured for victims after asylum shipwreck
Updated 25 minutes ago
Asylum seekers float in rough surf
Rescue crews are preparing to resume the search for victims of yesterday's Christmas Island shipwreck as the Federal Government said up to 100 people may have been on the boat which was smashed to pieces on rocks yesterday morning.
Twenty-eight people, including some children, are now known to have died in the tragedy. Another 44 are confirmed to have been rescued from rough seas near Flying Fish Cove.
This morning, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said between 70 and 100 people were believed to have been on the boat, which was carrying asylum seekers from Iran and Iraq.
He said 11 of those rescued appear to be children.
A temporary mortuary has been set up on the island and the bodies of the dead will be taken to the Western Australia mainland, where the state coroner will hold an inquiry.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and senior ministers are being briefed on the rescue and recovery operation this morning.
During the night, the Royal Flying Doctor Service flew two seriously injured survivors to Perth for treatment and more survivors are expected to be transferred to Perth in the coming days.
Mr Bowen has told Melbourne radio station MTR continuing rough seas in the area will make this morning's search extremely difficult.
"The situation in the seas was very, very rough," he said.
"It was what they call a Level Five. That means that the situation is extremely dangerous, so the first priority would be the safety of the rescue personnel."
A team of 13 police from Perth has arrived on Christmas Island to help investigate the tragedy.
It includes officers involved in investigating the Bali bombings and Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires.
The team comprises officers from Major Crime, coronial investigators, forensic experts including disaster victim identification specialists, and search and rescue officers, including police divers.
Refugee advocates are demanding a public inquiry into how so many lives were lost off Christmas Island.
Campaign coordinator for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne, Pamela Curr, says her sources on the island believe the people on the boat are Kurdish and Iranian and came via Indonesia.
And she has demanded answers about why the boat was allowed to get so close to the rocky coastline of Christmas Island in such rough conditions.
"How did this happen? We just don't understand," she said.
"We have a huge surveillance operation. We've got AFP officers in Indonesia who ride the ferries between Malaysia and Indonesia who arrest people alongside the Indonesian police in hostels.
"We have air surveillance, we have water surveillance, we have a very efficient border security operation out there.
"These people are not political. They are just there to see who's in the water, who needs help, how close they are to Australia, and they absolutely know who is approaching our shoreline."
This morning, Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop called the shipwreck a "terrible human tragedy".
"It is not a question of political points-scoring today .. it's a very sensitive and difficult time," she told ABC News Breakfast.
"Clearly people will want to know how did it happen and could it have been prevented.
"I am sure there will be many questions to be answered by the Government ... but at this stage I think we should be focusing on the full extent of the tragedy."...<cont>
US critical of Rudd's handling of asylum seekers
Philip Dorling
December 16, 2010
Newly released diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks show the US was critical of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's asylum seeker position.
SECRET US embassy cables have sharply criticised the handling of asylum seekers by former prime minister Kevin Rudd and accuse Labor and the Coalition of playing partisan politics with the issue.
The cables reveal that a close adviser to Mr Rudd failed in an attempt to persuade him to use the government's powers "to calmly and rationally put the issue in perspective" by acknowledging that only a small number of asylum seekers were arriving by boat compared with tens of thousands of visa over-stayers each year.
According to one cable obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to The Age, an unnamed "key Liberal Party strategist" told US diplomats in November 2009 that the issue of asylum seekers was "fantastic" for the Coalition and "the more boats that come the better".
US embassy reports through 2009 reflect growing Labor concern with the increasing number of boats carrying asylum seekers, with US diplomats identifying people-smuggling as a critical test for Mr Rudd.
The embassy stepped up its reporting after the explosion and fire that destroyed a vessel carrying asylum seekers off Ashmore Reef on April 16, 2009.
US diplomats noted the issue was "highly emotive" and reported that Labor insiders regarded it as "politically dangerous" for the party that had promised a more humane approach prior to the 2007 federal election. "The Labor Party — which was burnt by this issue at the 2001 election — is fearful of being viewed as 'soft' on border security," the embassy reported in mid-2009.
Labor sources were keen to explain the government's difficulties and their own recommendations for an appropriate response. "Rudd's former foreign policy/national security adviser in opposition, Peter Khalil (protect) confided to us that Labor Party MPs were very anxious about the asylum seeker issue due to the events of 2001," the embassy reported in October 2009.
"In opposition, he advised Rudd to attack the amount of money spent on the Pacific Solution, but this was vetoed by senior party figures. Khalil predicted Rudd will 'get hit' by the public on this issue because his actions would not be commensurate with his tough rhetoric; he contended internal politics made it virtually impossible for Rudd to significantly strengthen border protection laws."
Mr Khalil suggested a better approach was for Mr Rudd "to use the power of government to calmly and rationally put the issue in perspective", specifically that there were about 60,000 cases of visa over-stayers per year, while only 1000 asylum seekers entered Australian waters by boat by that stage in 2009.
US embassy officers agreed, noting that "in terms of overall migration, the surge in asylum seekers is a drop in the ocean". But they reported Mr Rudd was "not mentioning this, or lauding his government's more humane approach to asylum seekers".
Federal Labor MP Michael Danby candidly told embassy officers that Mr Rudd had "played the politics badly" and "completely misread" the issue.
Coalition strategists were reported as saying the issue was "significant because it was the first time Rudd had been exposed for a lack of leadership and for 'trying to be all things to all people' ".
The US embassy reported that in parliamentary debate, Mr Rudd had "returned to tedious spin and bureaucratic jargon, making him look evasive and out of his depth". Reporting on Mr Rudd's handling of the diplomatic standoff with Indonesia over asylum seekers aboard the Australian Customs vessel Oceanic Viking, the embassy observed that "the PM's heavy-handed and increasingly awkward spinmeistering has alienated a media corps that has previously given him the benefit of the doubt on most issues".
"While our contacts insist that the Australia-Indonesia relationship is strong enough to withstand such irritants, they appear genuinely concerned that this standoff driven largely by Australian domestic politics has cost goodwill with the Indonesians."
The US embassy's reports also reveal Australia has been relying on US assistance in efforts to combat people smuggling. One cable reports that a senior Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet executive, responsible for border security, expressed official gratitude for "intelligence assistance provided by the United States to track people smugglers". Immediately before he was deposed as prime minister, Mr Rudd warned Labor against a "lurch to the right" on asylum seekers. Shortly after her appointment as Prime Minister, Julia Gillard announced a "tough" new policy, including establishing an off-shore processing centre.
Are there other elections I should be following?
Assange will never receive a fair trial: Hicks
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks. Photo: Jacky Ghossein
Former terrorism suspect David Hicks has come out in support of jailed freedom-of-speech campaigner Julian Assange, saying he feared for Mr Assange's safety should he end up in American hands.
...Yesterday, Mr Hicks told Fairfax Radio he was concerned about what might happen to Mr Assange if he was extradited to the United States.
"He will never receive a fair trial," he said.
"We have already established that it's a political decision rather than a legal one. It's important that our governments are held to account for any war crimes they may be involved in and that is why the work of WikiLeaks is so important."
Mr Hicks spent six years at Guantanamo Bay, the US-run prison camp in Cuba, before he returned home to Australia to serve nine months at Adelaide's Yatala jail.
He was convicted by a US military commission of "providing material support for terrorism".
Mr Hicks said he believed future WikiLeaks releases could contain information about his incarceration.
"I will watch with interest in more leaks released because I have heard that they might contain information about my treatment in Guantanamo and the political interference in my case," he said.
"I just hope the Australian government doesn't abandon him like they did to me."
Infants among shipwreck dead
Updated 1 hour 0 minutes ago
Of the 42 survivors, 25 are men, eight are women and there are nine children. (Audience submitted: Ray Murray)
The Federal Government has revealed seven children were among the 28 asylum seekers killed when their boat was wrecked against rocks off Christmas Island yesterday.
Three boys and four girls died, along with nine women and 12 men. Four of the children were infants.
Of the 42 survivors, 25 are men, eight are women and there are nine children.
Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor says authorities have not yet established the relationships between the survivors and those killed.
"There are translators are assisting the counsellors and the medical practitioners in order to ensure we have as much information as we can," he said.
"At this point our focus is attending to the care of people who have been traumatised because of this tragic situation."
He says three Indonesian crew members are among the survivors. It is thought that up to 100 passengers were aboard the boat.
Authorities say they hold little hope of finding anyone else alive, and earlier today Prime Minister Julia Gillard warned of a rising death toll.
Ms Gillard proposed a bipartisan committee to receive briefings on the disaster and help manage the Government's response, but the Opposition has declined her offer. ...<cont>
Ugly debate brews
December 17, 2010
"This nation finds it extraordinarily hard to keep the problem in perspective." Illustration: Judy Green
The death toll from the tragedy off Christmas Island has risen to 30, while another boat has been intercepted in Australian waters off Ashmore Island.
Debate on asylum seekers threatens to turn very dark, and it's a test for the nation and its leaders to prevent it.
The politicians desperately tried to avoid sounding ''political'' as the shocking news of the smashed boat and destroyed lives unfolded on Wednesday, with the television images of boiling sea, treacherous rocks and floating bodies and debris.
In the blogosphere, there was no such restraint. Passion and fury reigned, with claims of blood on Labor hands, calls for Julia Gillard to resign, and not a little distasteful triumphalism about prior warnings.
In an extraordinary statement, independent MP Rob Oakeshott declared, ''Rumours and allegations are shooting through communities such as mine on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, with the worst being that government authorities allowed this to happen.''
A new dark era threatens to descend on Australia's asylum seeker debate. It could become very black indeed in coming days, as political contributors loosen their initial restraint.
Gillard did what she had to in returning from holiday to deal with a disaster that requires political as well as practical handling. Anything else would have been intolerable.
It's not just the immediate questions, especially how the boat got so close to the rocks without interception. Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor explained that it was because of the bad weather and the fact a wooden boat can get under the radar. This one wasn't even known about until too late.
It will take the various inquiries to get definitive answers to all the questions, and judgment should wait for the evidence.
But it's the sharp, emotion-charged new focus to be put on asylum seeker policy that must be the real worry.
What a bitter irony. This dreadful loss of life should soften our hearts. Instead, there's a real risk it could harden them. And irony piles on irony: Labor's abolition of the Pacific Solution and its reforms to detention have, perversely, ended in more incarcerations and a government quest for a new offshore processing centre.
Once, critics condemned John Howard; now Gillard is being targeted, by a (mostly but not entirely) different set of critics.
Australia's boat arrivals - more than 6500 people this year, including crew, in some 130 boats - are few in absolute numbers (though growing significantly - it was 2856 last year). But this nation finds it extraordinarily hard to keep the problem in perspective. That's why other countries, with much more porous borders, often wonder why Australia is agitated. ...<cont>
