Indonesia has asked Australia to explain how an alleged people smuggler, known as Captain Emad, was given a refugee protection visa in Australia.
You have to love Indonesia – who have been waving boat people through to Australia for years – harbouring all manner of people smuggling activity – and they go public to increase the Australian Govt’s acute embarrassment at the stunning revelations aired on the ABC’s Four Corners program.
Incidentally I have updated my monthly boat arrivals graphic – still looking for data for 2008 to July 2009. It shows the scale of the boom in arrivals in May.
Remember the Four Corners program will be replayed on Saturday 9 June at 8.00pm on ABC News24.
This article in The Australia a must read account of some events in the year it took to complete the Four Corners expose.
That Sarah Ferguson must be a born investigator.
Warwick,
payback time for various bits of inconsiderate behaviour by Australia (read Kevin & Julia); e.g. the live cattle ban, lectures on letting people smuggling go on etc.
THANKS, Warwick, for the graph. Today we learn than one of the “people smugglers” has decamp under the surveillance of the Federal Police.
How is it that the smugglers gained access to the Australian community before some of their “passengers?” And how is it that, when their illegal entry and activities are exposed by 4Corners, the Federal police sit and watch as the leading “smuggler” leaves our jurisdiction?
Agreed Geoff – I think a lot of people must be curious about exactly what our authorites were doing after the ABC notified the AFP of the upcoming program.
After following the news generated by Four Corners TV this week and listening carefully to the live press conference by the AFP Chief Negus who sounds like a savvy lawyer – I am curious about the following points.
[1] The AFP & Govt had warning of the ABC TV so they knew Capt Emad (and associated maybe) were likely to do a runner.
[2] So being forewarned – that between the combined talents and powers of the AFP, Customs & Dept Imm. they could not have at least devised a pretext to hold him at Tullamarine overnight for intensive searching / questioning – checks re money – forensic examination of his travel papers and detailed comparison of his statements with statements he and his family made on entering Australia and to get out of detention quickly 2 years ago.
[3] I assume he was living here on some sort of visa. Surely the AFP should have been urgently working with the Minister for Immigration from Tuesday morning to see if powers existed to cancel, revoke, or issue some notice (show cause) re his visa. This would surely have put him more in their power – possibly changed the circumstance to one of a pending deportation – and given them time to hold Capt Emad and investigate his entire network, money trail, phone records etc. Hey – even hire Sarah Ferguson as a consultant.
[4] From the Tuesday morning a parallel urgent AFP investigation should have been made into his family – starting with statements they made – forms they filled in entering Australia – then to get rapidly out of detention. These statements should have been compared with forms filled in and records of interviews they must have gone through to get ACT Govt housing. Ditto if Centrelink is involved. Ditto if there is a relative working for the Dept of Imm. Ditto for any other family work applications. Ditto to check their bank details to ensure no unusual money is being handled.
[5] From the time the AFP were notified they could also have been urgently contacting Indonesian and Malaysian police to check if they might be interested in AFP info.
I wonder how long it will be before we can learn if anything like these investigations were underway last Tuesday. I would not expect anything out of the ACT Govt re the Govt housing issue – these news items relate how somebody convicted of murder in 1995 – still had an empty Govt flat waiting for him 17 years later. Surreal.
Eastman fails again on keeping his guvvie – 30 May 2012
the-riotact.com/eastman-fails-again-on-keeping-his-guvvie/74045
Eastman was convicted of the 1989 murder of Mr Winchester in 1995, after a prolonged trial
Eastman denied second inquiry – March 2012
www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/eastman-denied-second-inquiry-20120307-1ukxb.html
Three boats were reported on the 13th June – all reported by Customs – not the usual Home Affairs Media – one was at Cocos with 35 people – one north of Christmas Island with 72 and one north-east of Ashmore Islands with 28 people.
I notice these Customs media releases 13 June are dated wrongly with the 14th June. I have kept a screenshot.
Note the updated chart above – not yet halfway through June and we have seen 852 IEV arrivals – more than a typical high month.
Also – another useless statistic – as of the 13 June we have seen 3870 IEV arrivals during 2012 – compared to 3863 for all 2011.
With the next monsoon season several months away – I am wondering when the boat arrivals will think to organize themselves into derelict freighters and start arriving in more significant numbers. I am no shipping expert – but could you crowd 1000 people onto an old freighter for a short voyage ?
it’s being reported on breaking news in the Oz that Sri Lanka arrested a boat with their people on it en route to Australia
oh well, if we can’t guard our borders maybe we could outsource that duty to Sri Lanka, India and other countries whose people are making a sea gull flight to Australia
Just heard Jason Clare on TV saying that this story of the capsizing of a boat from Sri Lanka with loss of life has been developing since early Wednesday morning. Clare said that our rescue service AMSA got a phone call at 1.30am Wednesday from the vessel saying they were in trouble and the AMSA advice was to return to Indonesia.
First I heard of it on news services was late Thursday.
Listening to news Thursday night up to 11pm I thought all news was very managed with little detail. You have to listen carefully and pay attention to every word. I am waiting for the Ministers media release to get text of his early morning statements.
Now we hear that a Customs aircraft sighted the boat apparently OK on Wednesday after the earlier reports it was in trouble. The next contact was 3pm Thursday when it was capsized. I get the impression this matter has a ways to go.
That item on Four Corners was the most brilliant piece of investigative journalism. Amazing persistence and tenacity to be so thorough to actually locate Capt Emad in Canberra of all places. We received it on 20/20 in Kiwiland, although most likely a slightly cut-down version of it, just 30 mins. Does anybody know if Emad is still shifting shopping trolleys around in Gungahlin ACT? Some of those vessels could be even worse than freighters, possibly even unseaworthy, antiquated fishing boats – never designed to carry such large numbers of people. This latest one did not get very far.
Colleen – once he knew of the TV program – Captain Emad departed via Melbourne Airport for distant places.
The ABC has obtained some must-read faxes from the Australian Rescue Coordination Centre to the Indonesian equivalent BASARNAS – you would not want to be in strife at sea and relying on the Indonesians for help. There is still a vast amount of information to be released.
As Beachgirl said yesterday – “…this matter has a ways to go.”
“Our” ABC on the news said the people on the capsized boat came from Afghanistan (maybe to get sympathy) but they looked like Tamils to me.
So the Indonesians knew when the stricken boat was only 38 nautical miles offshore that it was already in serious trouble taking on water. But then BASARNAS sat on their hands, not mobilizing their rescue boats until Thursday. Then not until FRIDAY (after a request from Australia as to whether they were still proceeding), do they advise that their naval vessels had already turned back due to high seas. Good on the ABC for obtaining the faxes. Truly incredible is the disregard for the people on the stricken boat shown by Indonesia. While three Australian naval vessels coped with the “high seas” and their planes dropped life-boats and went into rescue and recovery mode. What an insight into this disaster.
Just heard here (2.10pm Wed NZ Time) yet another boat carrying asylum seakers has capsized with approximately 150 on board. 107 nautical miles North of Christmas Is. As Warwick says Indonesia has been “waving boat people through to Australia for years”. With the frequency appearing to be stepping up I wonder if there have been any recent statements from your PM regarding the issue.
There is a lot of talk going on right now in the big house. However Australian border policy can not be held to ransom just because desperate and foolhardy people embark on risky voyages which end up with their vessels foundering in Indonesian waters.
We have to keep a sense of perspective here. It is hard to comprehend how these boats are putting to sea without Indonesian authority of some sort being aware.
It is worse than I first thought – I just heard the PM say that when the first merchant ship arrived it reported the boat afloat with people on board wearing lifejackets (not in the sea) – then it reported the boat started to sink. Sounds to me like the boat was deliberately sunk.
Australia is being blackmailed by people deliberately self harming by sinking their craft – well in Indonesian waters. Blackmailed into approving border law changes to help get Labor off the hook of its own making.
Just read on the ABC;
4:56pm: Indonesian officials have told AAP they think the asylum seekers sabotaged the boat when it was near Christmas Island.
www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-27/asylum-seeker-boat-in-distress-off-christmas-island/4095566
Our MP’s droning on in Parliament do not seem to be aware of this.
As a nation we seem to be gullible for any confidence trick going.
I saw this weird headline while surfing the www looking for international responses to the last two frantic and big hanky days in the Australian Parliament, “Senate scuttles bill for migrants”, silly me thought the issue was around border protection, trying to stop people using leaky boats and combating dodgy asylum seeker claims. Then I saw that the NZ Herald is owned by Fairfax, that GreenLeft bastion and all was clear, pure propaganda out of the “asylum seeker industry”. Can not find that headline in Australia using Google, maybe it will turn up.
Pretty! This has been an extremely wonderful article. Thanks for supplying these details.
Note from Ed: We are getting spam from Indonesia now – I hope the Indonesian CIA are not checking in.
This is from a group teaching Bahassa – maybe we could all learn some Bahasa Indonesia. I seem to recall Terima kasih was about my limit.