In an internal report into December’s Christmas Island asylum seeker tragedy, the Customs and Border Protection Council has found both itself and the Navy to be faultless. Meanwhile, the Indonesion sailors allegedly in control of the doomed vessel have been charged with the facilitation of people-smuggling.
According to Customs, the Navy first sighted the vessel at 5.40am, at which time it was reported as “not in immediate danger”. Nevertheless, it took the Navy almost one and a half hours to reach the boat after it received reports of the crash. Apparently this was reasonable, “due to the weather.” Odd that a fishing boat seemed to be doing just fine, while the Navy had to hide around the corner.
Even more odd is that we are locking up the fishermen. Perhaps we should be giving them a job teaching our sailors how to drive a boat.