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2 Mar, 2014

Breaking the Australian government’s silence on stopping the boats – Sydney Morning Herald

Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison banged the “stop the boats” drum long and loud in opposition. So it seemed baffling, even outrageous, when they fell suddenly silent in government. But on the other side of the wall of silence, on the high seas and on Indonesian soil, they have been stopping the boats.

When they first took office, they were not ready to launch operations at sea. So they put a major effort into breaking up the syndicates’ operations on land. The new government allocated $60 million in new funding to an intensified disruption program. Most of the money went to the Indonesian authorities, who co-operated intimately with the Australian police and intelligence services.

Read the rest: Breaking the Australian government’s silence on stopping the boats.