As the death toll among asylum seekers making their way to Australia by sea climbs to 400 in the past three years, authorities should reform their operational protocols — which are ad hoc and unpredictable — to save lives.
The issue of whether authorities can or should turn back asylum-seeker boats has been much discussed of late — but what about the related issue of how Australia should respond to phone calls from distressed vessels on their way to Christmas Island?
Both issues relate to maritime law and operational practice. The difference is that rescue-at-sea issues are being almost daily confronted now by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA, coming under the Transport Minister Anthony Albanese) and Border Protection Command (BPC, which reports to the Department of Customs and Border Protection coming under the Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare). Hundreds of people have died when they could and should have been saved.
AMSA and Customs (BPC) urgently need to reform their present operational protocols, or more asylum-seeker lives will be needlessly lost at sea.
Australia’s rescue-at-sea responses to distress calls from boats in international waters should be consistent and routine, regardless of the type of boat, its location, or the political climate in Australia at the time. Any distress call should be promptly checked, physically on the water, by the BPC or international merchant vessel that can reach the reported location most quickly.
If the distress is found to be genuine, the people should be rescued. If not, the boat should be left to continue on its route (whatever that is) through international waters, safely monitored by Australia. Boats should not be pressured to return to Indonesia. Decisions should be made by ships’ commanders on the spot, without political pressure from Canberra-based officials.
It is now clear that Australia’s response to distress-at-sea telephone calls from asylum-seeker boats is neither “consistent” nor “in accordance with the relevant conventions and international practices”, as was claimed recently by an AMSA spokeswoman. In reality, AMSA’s rescue response is ad hoc and unpredictable.
Most of the time, Customs and AMSA promptly launch a correct rescue-at-sea response, sending BPC ships to the area to physically check the circumstances of the asylum-seeker boat reporting distress. But other times, AMSA hospital-passes a distress call to the Indonesian search and rescue authority BASARNAS.
BASARNAS has neither resources nor desire to rescue asylum-seeker boats reporting distress in international waters (that is, beyond Indonesia’s 12-mile territorial waters) during attempted one-way journeys from Indonesia to Australia. Customs and AMSA then wait and watch to see what happens next.
When they do this, boats sink and people die. Sometimes (for example, with the boat that sank on June 21, 2012), Australia launches a belated rescue operation after seeing that a boat has capsized: 90 people drowned and 110 were rescued. Other times (for example, a boat that was “lost” in 2009 — result, 105 passengers missing presumed dead; and the Barokah which foundered in December 2011 — result, 150-200 missing presumed dead), Australia keeps well away until it is all over and there is no one alive left to rescue at sea. We are talking here about around 400 deaths at sea in three events in the past three years.
The AMSA spokeswoman agreed that AMSA’s rescue-at-sea practice is variable: “The operational circumstances may vary from incident to incident and it is these operational factors that shape the actual response”.
The problem is bedevilled by geography. Almost all the 200 nautical mile route from Indonesia to Christmas Island lies within Indonesia’s search and rescue (SAR) zone. This zone extends to south of Christmas Island. Australia’s legal SAR zone is simply the 12 nautical mile territorial sea around Christmas Island. Australia’s border protection system could position BPC ships at the 12 nautical mile northern boundary, waiting to intercept whichever boats make it that far, and ignoring distress calls or intelligence of distressed boats north of that boundary.
Normally, fortunately, BPC does better. As official media releases make clear, BPC regularly and pro-actively locates and when necessary rescues boats reporting distress from locations within the Indonesian SAR zone. BPC saves many lives in this way.
The death rate on asylum-seeker journeys to Australia used to be below 3%. But starting in December 2011, it has now risen to more than 4%.A spokesman for Albanese said that where an incident occurs in another country’s SAR region, AMSA would normally act to provide assistance rather than lead the response itself. He said: “The requirement for co-ordination of effort becomes more compelling with incidents close to the Indonesian coast than it is further offshore towards Christmas Island.” In other words, we act when we choose to: rescue by choice.
Barokah (which sank in December 2011, drowning 150 to 200) is an especially disturbing case of Australian system failure. At the time, Clare claimed that “the information about this boat and the information about it capsizing off the coast of Java was provided by Indonesian authorities to Australian authorities”. But in recent days, he revealed in an interview with Tony Negus that “we received calls from a vessel in distress last year in December that was very close to the Indonesian shoreline” — obviously in the context, Barokah.
Barokah reportedly foundered 40 nautical miles south of Java. O’Brien’s FOI searches revealed that Australian authorities refused to co-ordinate the search and rescue for Barokah, despite pleas for help from Indonesia because it lacked the resources. AMSA told BASARNAS that it was up to them to lead the mission.
The AMSA spokeswoman said the decision about Barokah was made because the boat was inside the Indonesian search-and-rescue zone. She said the agency offered support for “planning and drift modelling”.
Another distressing case occurred in June. AMSA reports a series of telephoned distress calls starting on June 19. The first calls were located 38 nautical miles south of Indonesia. In response, the AMSA Rescue Co-ordination Centre advised the vessel to return to Indonesia, and faxed BASARNAS requesting it to co-ordinate the incident. It is not clear if BASARNAS ever did anything.
The stricken vessel continued to limp slowly toward Christmas Island at two or three knots per hour, telephoning more distress calls. A routine BPC surveillance flight over the boat on June 20 reported “no visual sign of distress”. Finally, on June 21 the capsized boat was seen from the air about 110 nautical miles north-west of Christmas Island. BPC ships were then ordered to rescue — too late. Only 110 people were rescued; 90 drowned who could have been saved if Australia had responded correctly to earlier distress calls. This was another system failure.
I don’t get the whole exercise. Why keep spending millions of dollars and put the navy officers under stress all the time when you Aussies can just ship the asylum seekers from Indonesia cheaply at around 10 to 15K per trip with a modest safe ship ?
Your anti people smugglers policy is creating risk for asylum seekers who have to travel on unsafe, unregulated, over-crowded boats. It’s a dud policy, you cannot stop the people smugglers by trying to catch them, and this also leads to a discriminatory practice against poorer refugees where people who have the means to pay the people smugglers take up all the places available for resettlement.
You either open the gate, take them in safely and have policy how to deal with a much larger number of refugee and economic migration or have strong deterrence policy to discourage people from getting on the boats. Trying to catch the people smugglers as a way to control the migration is useless and increases risk for asylum seekers and more stress for Australian navy.
I suggest to you Tony that you hire a boat and go join the “rescue”
team yourself, if you are not happy with what the Navy and other
authorities are currently doing. So easy to criticise!
How about the asylum seekers take some responsibility for their own
actions. They get on these boats all by themselves – the are not forced
to do so at gun point or something. They actually pay for the pleasure!
What we need is off-shore processing and the Malaysian solution at
least given a trial run. Between the Greens, the Coalition and people
like yourself – FAT CHANCE!!!!
Actually, a combination of both, taking in many more safely and sustainable policy to deal with the intake while also have strong deterrence policy to discourage people from getting on the boats is the way to resolve the problem.
CML, as an island continent, we have been dependent on adherence to the centuries old maritime principle of rescue-at-sea, regardless of who is at risk. That’s one reason why the Navy opposes turning back of boats. It is also why we rescue lone yachtsman adrift in sub-Antarctic waters. As a seafaring nation, we need others do that in turn for us. To delay or worse, not to act when vessels are in distress, is utter negligence. Interference in rescue-at-sea is the most shameful outcome of the politicization of asylum seekers.
The “Malaysian solution” requires people to board dangerous boats in order for it to be enacted.
Likewise the Nauru Solution. These are not life saving policies. No one with any moral integrity should support them.
Refugees are a fact of life. Australia has to get over it.
Maybe Us in another life- we are just lucky by birth.
Our land “girt by sea” is easy to regulate. Not too many inland continent nations.
IF we took refugees from our region for example 1000 of the 1200 assessed and approved UNHCR refugees waiting for resettlement now in Indo and increased our intake from the region, we would be undercutting “the people smugglers business model ‘ big time and saving lives.
People will wait if they have a guarantee of resettlement within 3 years but not if all they here is “Australia will close its borders now , soon, change of govt et etc as they are hearing right now.
This is why the boats are running. The people believe that a change of govt is imminent and that the doors will be closed.
Tony Abbott is on a win win- scare em in Indonesia and scare em in Australia, watch em run , watch em drown and WATCH ME IN THE POLLS on a winner!!!