(Transcript from World News Australia Radio)
The federal government calls it Operation Sovereign Borders.
But now it's been forced to admit that on several occasions, the operation has resulted in Australian violation of the border with Indonesia.
The admission has dealt a futher blow to bilateral relations, which have been under pressure amid reports that Australia has been spying on Indonesian leaders.
Santilla Chingaipe has more.
(Click on audio tab above to listen to this item)
"Our activities and assets have never and will never violate the sovereign territory of another country."
That was the head of the government's border protection policy, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell just two days ago.
But today he had something different to say.
"On Wednesday afternoon it came to my attention that Australian vessels operating under the control of Border Protection Command unintentionally sailed through Indonesian waters on several occasions. This is clearly a very serious matter. I was advised of these events after a routine vessel report was examined by border protection command official."
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says he has been advised that there had been a breach or breaches of Indonesian waters by Australian ships operating under Australia's border protection policy.
He says he contacted the Indonesian government to issue what he calls an unqualified apology.
"I should stress that this occurred uninntionally and without knowledge or sanction by the Australian government. After verification of this infomation, the government took the initiative to make contact with the government of Indonesia to advise them of these events at the earliest opportunity."
General Campbell says the details of the incursions are being reviewed by the Chief of the Defence Force and Australian Customs and Border Protection Command.
"I have since written to the CEO of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service and the Chief of the Defence Force who have co-responsibility for border protection command requesting that they jointly review the circumstances leading to the passage of Australian vessels through Indonesian waters. Again, I would like to reiterate that as I understand it our people on these vessels believe they were at all times outside Indonesian waters. As I said during Wednesday morning's press conference, which was held well before I was aware of these events, we have never intended for our assets to operate or to enter the sovereign territory of another nation."
The government has not revealed how many navy or customs vessels were involved, when the events occurred, or how far the vessels went into Indonesian waters.
Scott Morrison also declined to say whether the Australian ships were in the process of turning back asylum seeker vessels when the breaches occurred.
Mr Morrison says the incursions were a result of what he calls a positional error.
The head of the Australia Defence Association, Neil James, says that sounds likely.
"A positioning error caused by either human error or a breakdown in the equipment or the effect of weather or sea conditions. These things happen all the time. Indonesians are always intruding into say, PNG waters, through such positioning errors."
Australian Greens Immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young says she's not surprised by the Australian incursions.
"The extreme aggressive policy of this government turning back boats, towing boats with children on board means that these types of mistakes where always going to occur."
Scott Morrison says he's assured Indonesia that no further Australian incursions will occur.
But Neil James from the Australia Defence Association doesn't believe Australia can keep that promise.
"Over the hundreds of possibly thousands of years of Australia and Indonesia and other countries will be neighbours, there's likely to be things like this. They're reasonably infrequent and they're best handled at the lowest possible level as the accidents in 99.9 percent of cases are."
Despite the diplomatic embarrassment, the Immigration Minister says the government has every intention of continuing with Operation Sovereign Borders.
"We deeply regret these events and have offered an apology. However, the Australian Government remains committed to continuing the implementing the policies to stop the boats. We will ensure that the issues that led to these inadvertent breaches of Indonesian territorial sovereignty are rectified and do not reoccur. We will seek to work with our partners in the region and elsewhere wherever possible to achieve this outcome."
Share
