The Coalition has today stepped in to help fix a serious oversight as Labor continues to undermine Australia’s border security.
One of the three pillars of Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB) – policy that has safeguarded this nation – is regional processing.
However, it’s now emerged that the crucial law to designate Nauru as a Regional Processing Country lapsed months ago under Labor’s watch – forcing the Albanese Government to suspend Standing Orders today to ram through a Motion to rectify their mistake.
The crucial element to achieve this designation is a legislative instrument under section 198AB of the Migration Act 1958, which lapsed in October 2022.
This raises serious questions about whether Australia has potentially been without the capacity to conduct regional processing for months.
At the time this instrument was introduced in 2012, Labor’s then-Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said designating Nauru as a country for regional processing was in the “national interest.”
Was this an oversight, negligence or incompetence? You cannot afford to be any of these things when you are charge of the nation’s security.
This disgraceful failure compounds Labor’s plans to get rid of Temporary Protection Visas – another key pillar of OSB.
Between 2008 and 2013, more than 50,000 people arrived in Australia illegally on more than 820 boats, and tragically at least 1,200 died at sea – the Coalition’s OSB policy sent a significant message of deterrence to people smugglers looking to sell illegal boat voyages to Australia.