Sarah Gall is a political data scientist and membership secretary for the UK’s Conservative Friends of Australia. She previously headed up political and policy research for the Prime Minister of Australia.
Last week Rishi Sunak stood at a podium with the slogan ‘Stop the Boats’ emblazoned across it and announced the Conservative Party’s plan to tackle illegal Channel crossings.
For Australians, this is the same three-word slogan that was used ad nauseam during the 2013 federal election campaign by the centre-right Coalition, who were in opposition at the time. During this campaign, the Coalition announced that it would establish a military-led response to combat illegal boat arrivals under a plan called Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB).
Why was the implementation of OSB necessary?
When the Coalition was defeated by the Labor Party in 2007, there were only four illegal maritime arrivals in detention. At the time, Labor criticised the Coalition’s Pacific Solution Policy which, detained illegal maritime arrivals on small pacific islands and away from the mainland, stating:
“The Howard government’s use of Nauru as an immigration detention centre is not only a waste of money; it is inhumane. I believe that Australia is better than this Howard government policy. Labor would immediately shut down the Nauru and Manus Island detention centres and end the so-called Pacific Solution.”
While Labor had good intentions, their dismantling of the Pacific Solution Policy had devastating consequences. During their time in government, there were over 50,000 people arriving illegally on 820 boats, 1200 people tragically lost their lives at sea, and over 8000 children were detained.
This rapid influx of illegal boat arrivals meant that the Government had to open 17 additional detention centres, leading to a budget blowout of around £4 million per day.
In an attempt to process asylum claims as quickly as possible, many illegal maritime arrivals were released into the community without proper checks; over 500 of these individuals either had, or went on to have, criminal convictions for violent, sexual, or drug crimes.
The insidious people smuggling rings were also back deciding, instead of United Nations agencies, who came to Australia.
This meant that over 14,500 genuine refugees were denied a place under Australia’s offshore humanitarian programme because it was taken by those who had enough money to buy a place via people smugglers and arrived illegally by boat.
By 2012, the government realised their mistake of dismantling policies which deterred people from making unsafe journeys to Australia and attempted to reintroduce offshore processing.
When reopening the detention centre on Nauru, the relevant minister agreed that this was a “policy approach that is hard-headed but not hard-hearted, that is realistic not idealistic, that is driven by a sense of humanity as well as fairness”.
As the boats kept coming, further deterrence was required. On 19 July 2013 Kevin Rudd, then Prime Minister, announced that “from now on, any asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as refugees”; the number of people in detention reached 10,201, including 1,992 children.
When the Coalition came into office two months later, they were able to implement OSB fully.
This included: turning back boats to the country they came from; implementing a strict offshore-processing system; prevention of anyone who came illegally by boat from ever being resettled in Australia; and the reintroduction of temporary protection visas.
This policy approach meant that deaths at sea stopped, 19 detention centres were able to be closed, and all children were removed from detention.
The Coalition has therefore long-held the view that weak borders puts peoples’ lives at risk. This is also now a view of the Labor Party, who have broadly given bipartisan support to OSB (with the exception of temporary protection visas).
While many have come out against HM Government’s adoption of Australia’s strong border policies, the fact is they work, and should prove effective in deterring people risking their lives to cross the Channel – placing immigration decisions in the hands of the state, where they belong, and not those of the people smugglers.