Mr Abbott announced on July 25, 2013 that if a Coalition government was elected this year, he would appoint a three-star military commander to oversee a joint agency taskforce to deal with the issue.
Reporting to the Immigration Minister, the military commander would coordinate a response involving all 12 agencies currently involved in border security, including Coastwatch and Customs.
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This military approach to stopping asylum seeker boats would be called Operation Sovereign Borders and would be established within 100 days of taking government.
If elected, the Coalition under Mr Abbott would also act on previous promises to "turn back the boats", by sending Australian naval vessels to escort boats back to their country of origin if it is safe to do so.
