(Transcript from World News Australia)
A co-architect of the federal government's border protection policy "Operation Sovereign Borders" believes Europe could learn lessons from Australia when it comes to combating people-smuggling.
The retired major general says the death of more than 800 people in the Mediterranean's worst migrant disaster shows Europe has been "incompetent" in its policies.
Phillippa Carisbrooke reports.
The federal government says just one people smuggling boat has made it to Australian waters in the 19-months since Operation Sovereign Borders began.
Boats have been turned back.
Asylum seekers intercepted at sea have been sent to Nauru for processing, and told they'll never call Australia home.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says it's urgent Europe takes a strong approach too.
"The only way you can stop the deaths is to in fact to stop the boats. That is why it is so important that the countrie' of Europe adopt very strong policy."
Former Major General Jim Molan helped formulate and implement Australia's tough border protection measures.
He says if Europe is serious about controlling its borders then it should look to Australia.
"I don't know whether the individual tactics that we used - that is focusing on the people smugglers, setting up a regional solution, turning back the boats - are applicable. But I suspect that they are."
The office of the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection says 1,200 asylum seekers died at sea under the former Labor Government, and since the new government's policy was introduced, there's been no known loss of life.
But a lawyer with Melbourne's Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, David Manne, says Australia's policy does nothing to address the desperate circumstances that lead people to risk their lives at sea.
"All the deterrent policies in Australia really do is sweep people from our doorstep to dangers and possible death elsewhere and that is not what the international community needs."
David Manne says Australia's model should not be replicated elsewhere in the world.
"What we need is the international community to come together and to uphold the protection obligations which are owed to desperate people fleeing from persecution. And to strengthen strategies which are firmly founded in human dignity."
RISE is an organisation that represents refugees and ex-detainees in Australia.
Its Chief Executive Ramesh Fernandez says it is "nonsense" to think Europe could learn from what Australia is doing.
"Australia profoundly they violate human rights of refugees and asylum seekers coming on boats. And they do not process them in a humanitarian level."
