Boat carrying 30 suspected asylum seekers intercepted off Australia's north coast
Daily Telegraph
December 29, 2009 4:33PM
YET another boat carrying suspected asylum seekers has been intercepted off Australia's north coast, making it the 60th arrival this year.
The stationary vessel was spotted sometime before 7.30am today about 140 nautical miles (260 kilometres) north of Gove, in the Northern Territory, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said in a statement this afternoon.
When Border Protection Command crew went to the boat, the passengers said they wished to come to Australia.
The 30 passengers and three crew members will be taken to Christmas Island to be processed.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has lost control of Australia's borders, allowing people smugglers to access the nation via Indonesia.
Mr Abbott said that not only was there a steady flow of boats, but Mr Rudd had also expanded the means of getting into Australia.
"It's not just that you get to Christmas Island and you get to Australia, it now seems that if you get to Indonesia you also get to Australia, because of the deal that Mr Rudd did with the people on the Oceanic Viking,'' Mr Abbott said.
"Mr Rudd has completely lost control of Australia's borders."
A group of 78 Sri Lankans on board the Australian customs ship, were picked up in Indonesia's search and rescue zone in October and taken to Bintan Island.
They eventually accepted a deal from the Rudd government for the speedy processing of their asylum claims while they remained in Indonesia.
Mr Abbott said Mr Rudd also needed to come clean about any promises he made with the Indonesian government about a group of 250 ethnic Tamils at Merak, who have spent 11 weeks refusing to leave their boat after being intercepted off Indonesia in October.
The saga, which pre-dates the standoff on the Oceanic Viking further north, was triggered when Mr Rudd phoned the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and pleading for the vessel to be intercepted before it reached Australia.
Ever since, the Sri Lankans have refused to disembark, staging a brief hunger strike and threatening to torch their boat to draw attention to their plight.
One man on the boat, identified by Indonesian authorities as Jacob Samuel Christian, 29, died last Wednesday in hospital.
More proof that Beijing’s man on the ground in Australia, Australian PM, Comrade “Kevin 07” Rudd's border protection policies are working, with the arrival and escorting of yet another illegal 'refugee' boat,the 60th this year, been escorted to Australian soil by our Navy to commence their new life in Australia.
Rudd's re colonization of Australia via his party's by passing our immigration laws, combined with their divide and conquer policy of Multiculturalism will reap the havoc and social dislocation they have already have and are intended to do.
Bring on the Treason Trials.
It is indeed time Comrade Rudd came clean with the Australian people,now, whilst public execution for his and his party’s crimes against us is not yet on the table.
Comrade Rudd’s Australia, Labor’s Open Borders Policy IS working.
Rudd Govt's Immigration Policy an Invitation to Chaos
- Opposition: Australia 'magnet' for people smugglers
- Second boat: Rudd "losing battle" to people smugglers
- Asylum row : Navy stops intercepts another boat
- Asylum refused: Indonesia asked to stop illegals
- Asylum seekers: Suspected asylum seekers intercepted
- 50 on board: Another asylum boat intercepted
- Refugees: Asylum-seeker boat intercepted
- Jakarta puts Rudd on notice The Australian, 17 hours ago
- Viking deal 'to sway others' The Australian, 7 days ago
- Boat saga tests ties to Jakarta The Australian, 17 Nov 2009
- Navy intercepts 4th boat in four days The Australian, 16 Nov 2009
- Indonesia planning to deport boatpeople Daily Telegraph, 15 Nov 2009