It is true that 'only' two people died in Monday's apparently mishandled Border Protection Command (BPC) interception at sea of an unnamed asylum seeker boat. But there are questions to be answered nonetheless.
The Australian Customs vessel Ocean Protector made physical contact with the boat, reportedly carrying around 95 people, in early daylight on Monday morning, at a location 14 nautical miles off Christmas Island. It had responded to a distress phone call made 13 hours beforehand from the boat to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. It had monitored the boat by technical means through the night.
The distress call had reported the boat was lost. But it had engine power and kept heading in the general direction of Christmas Island. Ocean Protector met the boat in the customary BPC interception zone, between 12 and 24 nautical miles off the island. There was no sign of damage to the boat and it was moving under its own power, so the event was handled as a standard border violation interception rather than as a rescue at sea.
Ocean Protector sent boarding parties in two or more tenders (small operational boats) towards the asylum seeker boat. Somebody on the asylum seeker boat apparently switched off the engines, assuming the Australians wanted it to stop so they could board it. It is not clear if it was ordered to stop. The boat started to rock in the swell.
During a lengthy media conference on Monday afternoon, BPC commanding officer Rear Admiral David Johnston described the state of the sea at that time as 'sea state three', which implies 'around 15 knots worth of wind and swell height that could be around about a metre' but also the possibility of larger waves, which 'appeared to have occurred in this circumstance'; he suggested the waves may have been up to two and a half metres.
Customs and Border Protection Minister Jason Clare added that 'when a vessel stops motoring along its stability is significantly reduced', and that when this particular vessel stopped for the boarding party to board and 'was hit by two waves' the vessel 'took on water and a number of people entered the water'.
We are told that within two minutes after the first two members of the boarding party (Customs officers, it seems) boarded the boat, it was either swamped or capsised by two large waves. A number of people — by some media reports, everybody on board — finished up in the water.
We are told that all were rescued save for two whose bodies were recovered — a boy aged four or five and a woman in her 30s. Two of the persons recovered were critically injured, including another boy aged six or seven and a pregnant woman in her 20s.
So, only two deaths and nearly all on board saved — surely this is too small an incident to warrant the cost and effort of a coronial inquest.
Not so. The details of the event as so far publicly known suggest seriously life-threatening negligent process, on the part of whoever issued the policy directions to halt and board the heavily laden boat in such sea conditions.
A safe alternative was readily available. The asylum seeker boat could have been ordered by loud-hailer from a safe distance to follow Ocean Protector into calmer waters in the lee of Christmas Island before boarding was carried out. Such a journey by the boat under its own power would have taken three or four hours, quite safely. The boat was simply lost — its engines were still working.
No one would have died if this unnecessary, and on the face if it unprofessional, halt and boarding had not taken place. No amount of blaming the asylum seekers for poor seamanship can get around that fact.
Even for those to whom lives of asylum seekers are of lesser importance than Australian lives, the fact that two Australian officers were already on board the boat when it foundered or capsized reinforces the case for a coronial investigation of the circumstances.
There is also the matter of precedent. In every case of deaths on an asylum seeker boat that has entered Australian waters or come under BPC control, there have been coronial inquests. There is no reason to treat this one differently, especially as the death toll could have been much higher. If 95 people were thrown into the water, many of whom one assumes could not safely swim, the boarding party was lucky to rescue most of them.
The Government might think they can tough or bluff their way through for a few days and the incident will then be forgotten. They may have a few more colourful details, perhaps photos of heroic rescues of children, to drip-feed to the media if pressure for a coronial inquest builds. We've been here before, on Children Overboard in 2001. Australia's responsible media should not be misled. There are serious issues here.
Asylum seekers deserve the same safety-of-life-at-sea procedures as any other boats stopped and boarded at sea by Australian authorities. The temptation to offer a second-class rescue response to asylum seekers 'because they came in unseaworthy boats' or 'should not have tried to come at all' must be resisted, if we are to remain a civilised country with a civilised government that observes international maritime law.
Tony Kevin's most recent book is Reluctant Rescuers. His previous publication on refugee boat tragedy, A Certain Maritime Incident, was the recipient of a NSW Premier's literary award in 2005.