Australian government’s criminal collusion with people smugglers

This video from Australia says about itself:

Tony Abbott won’t deny payments to people smugglers

12/06/15 Tony Abbott does not deny Australia paid people smugglers to turn back asylum seeker boats.

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation today:

Asylum seekers: Indonesian foreign minister wants answers over allegations Australia paid people smugglers

Updated about 6 hours ago

Indonesia’s foreign minister says she wants answers from Australia over claims navy officials paid people smugglers to turn a boat back into Indonesian waters.

Last month, Australian authorities intercepted a boat carrying 65 asylum seekers.

The crew told police on Indonesia’s Rote Island they had been paid thousands of dollars by Australian officials to turn around.

Retno Marsudi said she had raised the issue with Australia’s ambassador Paul Grigson in Jakarta.

“I just met the ambassador just now … so I made use of the opportunity to talk to him directly. Because we’re very concerned if it is confirmed,” she said.

“I just asked him ‘What is it about, tell me, what is it?’.

“He promised to take my question, my inquiry, to Canberra and he promised to get back to me again.”

Prime Minister Tony Abbott last week refused to confirm or deny the allegations and instead said the Government would stop the boats “by hook or by crook”. …

Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir said on Saturday the country was investigating the allegations.

“Of course on Australia’s push-back policy we have been consistently saying they are on a slippery slope,” he said.

“And should this situation [be] confirmed … it would be a new low.”

Professor of International Law at the Australian National University Don Rothwell told the ABC that, under regional protocols, such activity could be tantamount to people smuggling.

If the Coalition are genuine in their judgment of people smugglers as “the scum of the earth”, it would be a very strange thing to do business with them, writes Julian Burnside: here.

The Australian government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott faces allegations that military personnel paid so-called “people smugglers” and supplied them with boats to take asylum seekers back to Indonesia. In media interviews yesterday, Abbott refused to confirm or deny the claims, despite categorical denials by his own foreign and immigration ministers earlier in the week: here.

In statements to the media yesterday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott again refused to deny allegations that Australian officials paid six so-called “people smugglers” $US5,000 each in May to return 65 refugees to Indonesia against their will. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who had earlier denied the claim, have now reverted to the same position as Abbott. The government’s stance can only be taken as a tacit admission that it has been caught out engaging in actions that are flagrantly illegal: here.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his senior ministers refused again throughout parliamentary question time yesterday to either confirm or deny the allegation that Australian officials recently paid six “people smugglers” to return 65 refugees to Indonesia against their will. Government representatives answered every attempt by the Labor opposition to score political mileage from the scandal by insisting that they would not comment on “security, intelligence or operational matters”: here.