Christmas Isld waters impossible to police

The head of Australia's Border Protection Command has told an inquest into the Christmas Island boat tragedy that infallible surveillance of waters around the island is not possible.
Rear Admiral Timothy Barrett told a coronial inquest in Perth on Tuesday that navy and Customs crews "responded immediately and appropriately" to rescue survivors after a boat loaded with asylum seekers hit the rocks on December 15 last year.
He said there was no prior intelligence the boat, known as SIEV 221, would arrive in the severe weather that had forced the navy patrol vessel HMAS Pirie and the Customs vessel Triton to shelter on the island's lee side.
West Australian Coroner Alastair Hope is conducting the inquest into the tragedy which resulted in the deaths of 30 people from Iraq and Iran and the likely deaths of 20 more people.
Rear Admiral Barrett said the weather meant the Pirie crew could not conduct surveillance of the northern approaches to the island and had to watch over another asylum-seeker boat intercepted the day before.
"I believe this incident of shipwreck was unprecedented at Christmas Island," he said.
Border Protection Command, combining vessels and aircraft of the Australian Defence Force and Customs, had a vast maritime area to cover that comprised 11.5 per cent of the earth's oceans, Rear Admiral Barrett said.
"Only a small portion can be covered at any given time," he said.
The inquest heard that since June 1996, seven asylum-seeker boats had arrived undetected at Christmas Island out of 97 arrivals.
Rear Admiral Barrett said it was not feasible to station surveillance aircraft on the island because of limited fuel stocks, frequent bad weather and the long distance from the mainland.
RAAF P3C Orion aircraft flying out of Darwin could only manage three-hour sweeps for a 9.5-hour journey and cost around $46,000 an hour, he said.
A land-based radar system was being trialled for Christmas Island, but small wooden vessels in heavy seas could still prove difficult to detect, Rear Admiral Barrett said.
He said he had previously rejected the option of a military-style, long-range radar for the island because placing such a structure close to the Indonesian mainland would be "highly sensitive".
Land-based observation posts would be costly as well as ineffective in poor weather conditions and at night, he said, with asylum-seeker boats generally not showing lights.
Rear Admiral Barrett said a surveillance system to guard against all threats at all times was impossible.
"It is not possible to construct a surveillance system that is failproof," he said.
Rear Admiral Barrett said his command relied on an intelligence and risk-based system for prioritising the use of its limited number of vessels and aircraft.
He said arrivals of asylum-seeker boats at Christmas Island presented the least risk for his command's law enforcement role, given the priority to prevent such boats arriving on the mainland.
Under law changes brought in under the Howard government in 2001, island territories were excised from Australia's migration zone, meaning asylum seekers arriving on islands have no right to apply for a visa.
Coroner Alastair Hope asked Rear Admiral Barrett if his command had a responsibility to anticipate the arrival of an asylum-seeker boat in bad weather and be ready to assist if it got into danger.
Rear Admiral Barrett said he knew of no agency that had such a responsibility, and the same situation could apply equally anywhere around the Australian coast.
"There's an expectation that masters of vessels avoid putting themselves in those situations."
Rear Admiral Barrett told the inquest that his command was "not a search and rescue organisation" but did respond when emergencies occurred at sea.