No one was accountable for failures on boat
people. Now there's a general to blame when it all goes wrong
Fifteen months ago, a derelict 20-metre Indonesian fishing
boat with 202 passengers phoned in from sea to the Rescue Co-ordination Centre
at the Australian Marine Safety Authority. The boat had already been 44 hours
at sea and was about 40 nautical miles south of Indonesia - a fifth of the way
to Christmas Island. It was in trouble, the message said.
There were communication difficulties, and problems in
establishing the boat's location, but within about four hours Australians had
notified the Indonesians, in whose rescue zone it belonged and were monitoring
the response. Whatever the Indonesians promised, or what those liaising with
them imperfectly understood, nothing much happened; and calls from passengers
to the RCC saying the boat was taking on water and begging for help continued.
An operations group consisting of customs, security and
defence people and AMSA met that afternoon, but decided that the boat was not
in any distress. Boat people, apparently, often claimed they were in trouble -
the opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, claimed they were in effect
using rescue as a taxi service. A day, and numerous calls later, a customs
aircraft flew over to inform the committee that the boat, now about halfway to
Christmas Island, was overturned with people clinging to the hull.
Nearby shipping was asked to attend, and an Australian navy
ship was sent. The rescue of the survivors was exemplary once people arrived,
but there was criticism that co-ordination of the affair, from Canberra, had
been complacent, slow and less than diligent.
This was a conclusion firmly rejected by an internal inquiry
commissioned by those involved. It thought that the timeliness of their
response was ''reasonable'' - and, in a time-honoured bureaucratic manner - all
involved in any part of the critical decision making - particularly as to the
decision that the boat was probably OK and that claims to the contrary ''were
either exaggerated or simply untrue'' - agreed that it had been a collective
decision.
In the bureaucracy, when everyone is responsible, no
one is responsible. That the assessment made in Canberra proved to be wrong
was neither here nor there; indeed those who conducted the review thought that
making any improvements to procedures could introduce new risks.
When the West Australian coroner conducted an inquest into
the deaths of the 17 people whose bodies were found (it is thought another 85
perished), an AFP officer told Commonwealth authorities not to give WA Police
this report, or intelligence material making clear how much these officials
knew about what had occurred during the boat trip. WA police found the
Commonwealth far less than co-operative, and said so.
Australian bureaucrats did not kill these boat people. Those
responsible are the people smugglers who sent the passengers to sea in leaky
boats. But if Australia had a more proactive and compassionate response to the
plight of boat people, they would have most likely survived.
If there are more drownings, those who made operational
decisions will not be able to hide behind the anonymity of committees. The man
in the gun will be Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell.
It is, however, by no means clear that those planning the
new and militarised solution to the boat people problem expect that there will
be any further inquests, even if refugees die at sea. The idea of any civilian
- or citizen - being allowed to ask the general, or minister, any questions is
being treated as an impertinence.
This is not the first time that Australian soldiers have
been sent to war against unarmed men, women and children. And if it leads to
defeat, that wouldn't be the first time either. Six years ago, John Howard sent
Major-General Dave Chalmers (now a Commonwealth bureaucrat) to lead an
''emergency'' intervention against Aboriginal child abuse in the Northern
Territory. It cost hundreds of millions, but had no real impact on the lives of
those it was meant to help. It is likewise doubtful that General's Campbell's
fulfilment of duty
will improve the lives of the boat people he intercepts,
those they are said to have pushed aside in some notional queue, or even
Australia's reputation, civil or military, in the world. It may cause more
deaths - and not only of boat people, but also our sailors. But it may sell
well - at least for a while - in an electorate encouraged to think we face
invasion from unwelcome people through porous borders. That's what it's all
about. Political victory - at least if Campbell can deliver on a political (not
operational) mandate that the work of his front-line sailors be as free from
independent contemporaneous scrutiny as possible. Even refugee-hating
Australians are squeamish about what repelling boarders involves.
It was not clear yesterday if Campbell is to get the full
Chalmers package. Defence gave Chalmers a personal press minder focused on
promoting Chalmers himself. This is a service not commonly rendered to public
servants.
Campbell stands alongside the new minister, in charge of a
joint agency taskforce with a deputy and three people immediately under him.
His deputy is Alan McKinnon, a former deputy national security adviser (and son
of a former Immigration Department secretary). It is not clear either has
military command authority, as such.
One of the three operational bosses is AFP Assistant Commissioner
Steve Lancaster, who co-ordinates disruption and deterrence task group
operations, primarily in Indonesia but also in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan,
Afghanistan and in the Middle East. (Such operations, conducted by the AFP, the
Australian Secret Intelligence Service, and local police and security service
opposite numbers, are badly in need of external review, for probity and
integrity as much as efficiency.)
Another is Rear Admiral David Johnson, who co-ordinates the
detection of boats (including from secret satellite and computer interception
operations, which are never admitted), the interception of boats (including
sending boats back to Indonesia, if we feel like a confrontation for domestic
political purposes), and transfer of boat people to Christmas Island.
The third group, under Ken Douglas, deputy secretary at
Immigration, is in charge of shifting boat people to Manus Island or Nauru, and
subsequent programs designed to make sure that none ever gets to mainland
Australia.
Campbell has already publicly owned the claim - which is
very debatable - that a curtain must be put over his activities for operational
security, so as not to telegraph his activities to people smugglers or to allow
them to devise counter-tactics. This will increase, not reduce, public and
journalistic efforts to put his activities under close scrutiny. It will also
prevent his being treated with that deference the military might ordinary get
but with the suspicion that political operatives in murky fields deserve.
Likewise, the more closely his minister seeks to
micro-manage publicity and the practical administration of a controversial
policy, the more that he will have to wear, like Campbell, responsibility not
only for outcomes but unpredictable events. Even events he does not expect, but
that nonetheless are predictable, so as marked High Court distaste for
the idea that immigration policy can be removed from judicial or public review.
By Jack Waterford Editor-at-large, The Canberra
Times
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