December 13-2013
. . . prime minister
The number of Iranians and Sri Lankans trying to sneak into Australia by boat is now declining for the first time in three years, the daily Australian reported last week.
Furthermore, more Iranians and Sri Lankans are expected to be sent home in the coming weeks than are arriving, so the overall total in Australia will actually decline, the newspaper said.
The Australian is a serious national daily, but it did not say where it obtained some of its statistics. The new government of Prime Minister Tony Abbot has been very unhelpful in providing data to the media about its efforts to stem the flow of asylum-seekers, which was one of the major issues in the September parliamentary elections that brought Abbott to power.
Last month, The Australian said, there were 207 arrivals and 66 people were sent back, including more than 40 Iranians. All Sri Lankans who have arrived illegally since mid-September have been sent back or volunteered to return to Sri Lanka.
Australia, however, still has a backlog of 33,000 people of many nationalities seeking asylum.
The Australian said, “It appears the decline in illegal boat arrivals, particularly among Iranians, is a result of combined actions by the Indonesian government, the second [Kevin] Rudd Labor government [defeated in the recent elections] and the Abbott government.”
Abbott and Immigration Minister Scott Morrison last week said Operation Sovereign Borders has cut the number of new arrivals since September 18, when it took office, by 86 percent compared with the last months of the Rudd government. That is based on 5,463 illegal arrivals in the last 72 days of the Rudd government versus 751 illegal arrivals in the first 72 days of the Abbott government.
Illegal arrivals peaked in July with an average of almost 1,000 people of all nationalities arriving each week.
In mid-July, Rudd convinced Indonesia to do away with visa-free arrivals for Iranians, who had previously been able to travel to Indonesia without a visa and board boats bound for Australia. For the previous year, Iranians had been the largest nationality group arriving in Australia by boat.
In August, the average number of people arriving illegally dropped by more than half to about 400 a week.
Since the September election brought Abbot to power, the average number has fallen to 78 per week, The Australian reported.
In the last week of November, there was only one illegal boat arrival with nine passengers. During the peak week in July, 12 boats arrived with 1,036 people on board.
In addition to the loss of visa-free entry to Indonesia by Iranians, the Rudd government started and the Abbott government continued sending new arrivals to remote Pacific islands and not allowing them to enter mainland Australia for the processing of their asylum requests. The Australian did not say now many asylum requests have been approved and denied under the Abbott government.