Current situation/Labor policy
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- Border Protection Command, set up in 2005, is a joint effort by Customs and Navy led by Customs. Headed up by a Navy Rear-Admiral (with a two star ranking) seconded to Customs, it uses both Navy assets and personnel and Customs assets and personnel (including 18 vessels and 17 aircraft) and reports to the Home Affairs Minister.
- 16 other government agencies, including the Immigration Department and Australian Federal Police are considered partner agencies
- Unsuccessful asylum seekers are either sent home or resettled in a third country.
- Customs has recently conceded it is "stretched" by the rate of boat arrivals.
- Regional processing reopened on Nauru and Manus Island in 2012
- Regional Arrangement, signed July 19, 2013, will see asylum seekers sent to PNG for assessment and if found to be a refugee, also settled there.
- Labor now saying "asylum seekers who come here by boat without a visa will never be settled in Australia".
- Regional processing to be "significantly expanded" - no cap on numbers of people who can be sent to PNG.
- Government has flagged deal could be expanded to countries such as Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the Philippines.
- Option of increasing humanitarian intake from 20,000 to 27,000 per year, if boat arrivals drop.
- Government also flagged possible changes to UN refugee convention and toughening of the way asylum seekers are assessed in Australia.
Coalition policy
Asylum seekers from a boat rescued off Christmas Island. Photo: Sharon Tisdale
- Reintroduce temporary protection visas, which were issued to people classified as refugees and allowed them to live and work in Australia for up to 3 years. They are then required to reapply for successive visas for the right to stay, with permission depending on conditions in their homeland.
- "Boost" offshore processing.
- Turn back the boats, "where it is safe to do so".
- Humanitarian intake of 13,750 a year including 11,000 reserved for offshore applicants.
- Operation Sovereign Borders, announced on July 25, 2013, led by a military commander with a three star ranking, who reports directly to the Immigration Minister. It is aimed at "streamlining" decision-making on border security into a single command structure.
- Operation Sovereign Borders will be directed by a joint agency taskforce, involving all agencies who are involved in border security.
- In first 100 days of a Coalition government, Operation Sovereign Borders will establish a headquarters and create a joint agency taskforce; finalise and issue protocols for operation to turn back boats; increase capacity at offshore processing centres; lease and deploy additional boats to relieve patrol vessels.
- The Coalition has indicated it may keep some elements of Labor's new PNG policy, but has not specified which aspects.
Greens policy
- Close down offshore processing, and no children in detention, either in Australia or offshore.
- Resettle to Australia an emergency intake of up to 10,000 UN Refugee Agency assessed refugees from the region, including at least 3800 from Indonesia.
- Increase Australia's humanitarian intake to 30,000 per year.
- Open up more family reunion places in Australia's humanitarian program.
- Emergency funding to UNHCR in Indonesia and Malaysia to speed up assessment and resettlement.
- Establish an Australian Ambassador for Refugee Protection to broker a regional cooperation agreement.
- Give asylum seekers who are living in the community under the ''no advantage'' stream the right to work while they wait for their claims to be processed.
- Codify Australia and Indonesia's respective obligations and cooperative protocols regarding rescue operations at sea.
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