Nationality and Borders Bill (Third sitting)

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We shall now take evidence from the Hon. George Brandis QC, high commissioner for Australia to the United Kingdom. We have until 12.45 pm for this session. Good morning, Sir, and thank you for joining us. Could you please identify yourself for the record?

George Brandis: Good morning, Mr Chairman. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is George Brandis and I am the high commissioner for Australia to the United Kingdom.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Q108 Thank you, High Commissioner, and welcome to today’s session. I would like to ask some initial questions about the timeline of the borders policy in Australia, or what became Operation Sovereign Borders. What the Bill before us tries to achieve happened in Australia over a period of time, so I would like to establish the timelines.

George Brandis: Yes, I can tell you that. Operation Sovereign Borders was a policy introduced by the Government of Mr Tony Abbott, which was elected in September 2013, and administered under the leadership of the then Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, now the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.

Perhaps it would be helpful if I gave the Committee a little context. The purpose of Operation Sovereign Borders was to address a problem that had grown increasingly acute in the previous years: the arrival or attempted arrival by boat—almost always ramshackle, small, unsafe boats—across the seas, particularly the Timor sea, to the north-west of Australia, of irregular maritime arrivals. In the years prior to Operation Sovereign Borders coming into effect, there had been more than 50,000 illegal arrivals to the north-western coast of Western Australia in 827 vessels. That is the number of people we know about who made the journey.

We also know that a large number of people who attempted to make that journey drowned. There will never be a reliable figure for what that number was, because we simply do not know how many there were, but because we have counted, sadly, from the corpses, we know of 1,204 people who drowned. Whether the actual number was a multiple of that, or many hundreds more, it is impossible to tell, but certainly more than 1,200 people drowned.

Operation Sovereign Borders was introduced to address that dreadful problem. The implementation phase lasted approximately nine months, during which the flow continued. However, as the policy began to take effect and be effective, that flow dwindled to a point where some nine months later, by July 2014, it had ceased completely. Since then, there has not been a single irregular maritime arrival on Australia’s shores, as far as we can tell.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q You said that these boats were coming to the north-western part of Australia. Where were they coming from?

George Brandis: Primarily the southern shores of Indonesia.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q How far is Indonesia from the north-western shore of Australia?

George Brandis: It is a great distance. I cannot give you the exact figure, but it is certainly more than 1,000 km.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q Other aspects of the immigration policy before Operation Sovereign Borders were offshoring and detention accommodation. Do you recall when those were introduced?

George Brandis: They were part of Operation Sovereign Borders. There were three elements to Operation Sovereign Borders: disruption and deterrence activities; turnarounds, where it was safe to turn the vessels around; and offshore processing. I will speak briefly to each of those elements.

With the co-operation of the Indonesian authorities, the people smugglers’ activities were disrupted at the points of embarkation on the southern shores of Indonesia, so it became more difficult for them to publicise and assemble the clientele to embark on these unsafe vessels. Generally, they were run-down fishing vessels.

The turnaround operation, which was conducted in international waters, repelled the vessels and returned them to the Indonesian shore, where it was safe to do so.

Regional processing, through a series of agreements that Australia made with Nauru and New Guinea in particular, meant that people who were not turned around and were taken onboard Australian vessels—they were rescued, in effect, because they could not be safely turned around—were processed offshore in countries where they were not at risk.

It is important to stress that Australia’s obligations under the 1951 refugee convention were complied with at all times, for several reasons. First, Indonesia in particular was a transit country for these people—none of them claimed to have been persecuted by the Indonesian Government. Secondly, the countries to which they were sent for regional processing were safe countries, where they were not exposed to the perils against which the refugee convention protects. Lastly, Australia observed its non-refoulement obligations at all times.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q In relation to the offshoring in Papua New Guinea, is it correct to say that Papua New Guinea declared the transfers illegal, so offshoring had to stop because of the decision made there?

George Brandis: There was litigation in New Guinea about the agreement between their Government and the Australian Government in relation to a particular processing centre on the New Guinea mainland. It is not my understanding that that affected the other processing centre within New Guinea, on Manus Island.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q But there was a class action brought by people from Manus Island in relation to the way they were treated. Do you recall the outcome of that?

George Brandis: I am not in a position to speak in relation to that, but I make the point that that is entirely a matter for the Government of New Guinea. From an Australian point of view, the legal and constitutional validity of the offshore processing arrangements were challenged in the High Court of Australia, which in the Australian system is the equivalent of your Supreme Court. The High Court ruled that under the regional processing agreements that existed between Nauru and Australia, and between New Guinea and Australia, the regional processing centres were not Australian centres; they were in no respect under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Australia. They were centres operated by the Governments of Nauru and New Guinea respectively.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q But was that not part of the reason why Australia was reported to the International Criminal Court for processing in Nauru and New Guinea?

George Brandis: I do not think that is correct. I think it would be correct to say that there was a complaint made by people who disagree with the policy to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

[The Chair]

This will have to be your last question, Mr Charalambous.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q Do you have any figures on the cost of offshoring?

George Brandis: I do not have those figures in front of me. Under the regional processing agreements that Australia entered into with Nauru and New Guinea, the establishment of those centres, which required capital works and so on, was contributed to by Australia.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Q Thank you for giving up your time this morning, Mr Brandis. On the capacity of the offshore centres, am I right to say that it would be in the region of around 3,000 offshore places in total?

George Brandis: There were always more in Nauru than in New Guinea. Whether at the maximum point they reached as many as 3,000, I am not sure, but I would not be surprised if it was roughly that figure.