Saturday, 19 April 2014
The latest update on Operation Sovereign Borders reveals a milestone in the fight against people smugglers has been reached with four months having passed since the last successful venture to Australia, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, the Hon Scott Morrison said today.
More than a third of a year, 121 days or more than 17 weeks have now passed since people smugglers last sent a successful venture to Australia on December 19 last year.
Over the same four month period in 2012/13, when Labor was in office, there were 98 illegal boat arrivals with a total of 6298 people on board.
The government is meeting its commitment of stopping illegal boat arrivals. While there is more to do the government's policies have clearly demonstrated that our borders are strengthening, the integrity of our immigration programme is being restored, deaths are being prevented at sea and cost to taxpayers is being reduced.
More months have passed under Operation Sovereign Borders without a successful people smuggling venture arriving in Australia than months with them.
The government's full suite of policies, including turning back boats where it is safe to do so, remain in force.
If people seek to arrive illegally by boat they will be met with the exact same suite of policies that those who attempted to arrive illegally have already encountered, policies that have proved so successful under Operation Sovereign Borders.
It has been the government's turn back policy in particular that has principally achieved the results we have seen on our borders to date and those operations remain, as does the government's strong resolve.
URL:http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/sm/2014/sm213647.htm
Last update: Tuesday, 22 April 2014 at 11:33 AEST