Despite claims that the police and navy had no way of surveying, or receiving, a distress call from SIEV-X, the asylum-seeker boat which capsized last October, it appears that Australian authorities may have had far more than word of mouth to rely on in tracking the movement of asylum-seeker boats.

Labor senators John Faulkner and Jacinta Collins, sitting on the Senate estimates committee, have questioned Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty about the use of tracking and listening devices on asylum-seeker boats.

On November 20, Faulkner questioned Keelty, who said that police would not have used listening devices because that would have been illegal, but he would have to check with officers now in Indonesia for the Bali bombing investigation about whether tracking devices had been used. Justice minister Chris Ellison cut off further questions — not even allowing Keelty to say whether he was personally aware of such devices being used. Ellison said it was a matter of “some detail and sensitivity” and that Keelty was entitled to take the question on notice.

Keelty wrote to the Senate estimates committee the following day, saying that the answer “may disclose lawful methods for detecting, investigating or dealing with matters arising out of breaches of the law” and disclosure could “prejudice the effectiveness of these methods. I propose recommending to the minister [Ellison] that he make a claim of public-interest immunity in relation to information sought by these questions.”

The information which Keelty wants to avoid revealing — not for “security” reasons but for political reasons — could have damning implications for the mystery still surrounding the sinking of SIEV-X.

Keelty also told the committee that Abu Quassey, the people smuggler who organised the SIEV-X voyage, will not be prosecuted following his short jail sentence which ends on January 1. Australia can only indict Quassey if it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt that SIEV-X sank outside Indonesian territorial seas. The Australian government has maintained throughout the last 12 months that there was not enough information, or that SIEV-X in fact sank within Indonesian territorial waters, while the vast bulk of evidence indicates the opposite.

The committee that investigated the SIEV-X sinking had, by the end of its work, five pieces of strong evidence that SIEV-X sank in international waters, but it failed to make a strong statement to this effect in its findings. It will be a bitter irony indeed if prosecution of Quassey cannot proceed because it is more important for the Coalition government to maintain that the sinking of SIEV-X was ultimately not its responsibility, than pursing its “high priority” goal of convicting people smaugglers.

From Green Left Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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