Govt boosts WA coast surveillance

AAP - Surveillance has been stepped up off the West Australian coast after a vessel carrying 12 boatpeople made it to the mainland.

The arrival exposed what the Opposition called serious border protection failures,
saying the Rudd government was not doing enough to deter boat people from coming to
Australia.
The vessel was intercepted on Thursday off the mainland at Steep Point on the
mid-west coast, Western Australia's most westerly point.
Campers saw two of the 12 men, believed to be Sri Lankans, swim ashore and told them
of a safe place to access the mainland further south.
The men then swam back to the wooden vessel and the campers raised the alarm.
Customs officers immediately dispatched a WA Fisheries vessel and intercepted the
boat. It's understood to be the furthest south that illegal boat people have been
detected in Western Australia.
Senator Evans said authorities were investigating how the boat arrived off the
mainland undetected.
Australia's Border Protection Command was undertaking extra surveillance to ensure
there were no other boats in the area, he said.
But Opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone said the situation was
"ludicrous".
"They have evaded Customs, aircraft surveillance and the navy," Dr Stone said.
"So we really do have a problem with our border security.
"Quite clearly the border patrolling was totally inadequate, the aerial surveillance
is totally inadequate."
Dr Stone said Customs officials and the Navy should have been on high alert, given
that seven vessels carrying illegal boatpeople had arrived since August.
"I think it has to be more than coincidence that Minister Evans announced in August
that they were abolishing the temporary protection visas (and) that from now on this
government will give the same outcome no matter how you arrived in the country if
you are found to be a genuine asylum seeker," she said.
She said the minister had failed to send a strong message that Australia still had
mandatory detention and excised migration zones around the coast.
Senator Evans said arrangements were being made to transfer the boatpeople to
Christmas Island for processing and detention.
"The mandatory detention of unauthorised boat arrivals on Christmas Island is a key
component of the government's border protection arrangements," he said.
Dr Stone warned Australia's borders could be at risk from a stand-down over
Christmas by the Navy.
"Is Minister Evans going to hand out binoculars to campers on the west coast?," she
said.
Senator Evans said authorities were maintaining extensive air and sea patrols of
Australia's maritime borders.