PM: I have this morning been briefed by a range of officials, including Deputy Commissioner Colvin, on the tragic situation at Christmas Island. Can I start by saying this is a tragic event. We have seen loss of life. There are people on Christmas Island who will never forget the dreadful sights that they have seen in the last day and a half. Those memories will be with them for the rest of their lives. And of course we know in circumstances like this, that Australians want to understand what has happened. I will today be providing an update from Christmas Island and the tragic circumstances there, but I do want to be clear - what we know from past events like this one, is that the facts take some time to compile and so things that I will talk about today are advice to hand presently, but further details will become available over time.
Let me outline what we do know at this still relatively early stage. Border Protection Command was first notified of this vessel early yesterday mornings, when it was clearly in distress and hard up against the Christmas Island shore line. Navy and Customs vessels responded rapidly, but were unable to reach the vessel before it hit the rocks. A search and rescue operation was launched and it continued yesterday in extremely bad weather conditions, it continued while there was light. And this operation has been recommenced; it is underway as we speak with Navy and Customs assets. A P3 Orion has also been tasked out of Darwin to provide additional search and rescue capability. As of this morning, on the most recent advice available to me, 42 passengers from the vessel have been rescued, though this number may move around as we clarify through officials at Christmas Island the number of people who are now there on the Island in their care.
28 bodies have been recovered and of those 28 bodies, a number are young people and children. We do not know with any certainty how many people there were on the boat, so we've got to prepare ourselves for the likelihood that more bodies will be found and that there has been further loss of life than we know now with the numbers available to us now.
Our initial assessments, though these are not yet confirmed, are that the passengers on the boat are on Iranian, Iraqi and Kurdish origin. All survivors were originally brought to Christmas Island and the injured are receiving care. Two passengers were evacuated overnight to Perth because of the serious nature of their injuries and the need for the kind of assistance that can be made available in Perth, than cannot be made available on Christmas Island.
We expect a further three survivors to be transferred to Perth today, once again to receive additional medical care. A further three survivors are being observed in the Christmas Island Hospital. A team of trauma counsellors, Red Cross carers, interpreters and Immigration Officials is on its way to Christmas Island to provide additional support and we're also making every effort to respond to the needs of the Christmas Island community, including offering counselling and support to those who were witness to these dreadful events.
Yesterday we saw a truly horrific event, a terrible human tragedy, on what is a very dangerous coastline at Christmas Island and I know the nation is shocked by what we have seen. We condemn the trade of people smuggling, it is an evil trade, but I believe Australians are responding to these events today as human beings. We're seeing other human beings in distress and they're imagining to themselves - how would I feel if I was in those circumstances, how would I feel if I lost my wife, my husband, or my child in such rough and dangerous seas. I think we are seeing Australians respond with the kind of compassionate response that as Australians we are known for.
I want to today pay tribute to the people of Christmas Island. They were magnificent in these really difficult circumstances. They responded with great bravery and great compassion. I want to pay tribute to the professionalism of the men and women of the Australian Navy and Border Protection Command. They put themselves in harm's way, in dangerous seas, to help others. I think they were magnificent in how we've seen them respond and I think Australians who have seen the photographs would see that for themselves.
Together the people of Christmas Island and our Navy personnel and Border Protection personnel have rescued over 40 people and we owe them a debt of gratitude for that.
Finally, I also want to thank Western Australia, its Police and Emergency Services personnel, its health workers. I want to convey my thanks to the Premier of Western Australia; they've been very supportive as this incident has unfolded. I do also want to convey my thanks for the work that is still being undertaken by the Australian Federal Police and of course the work that will continue to be undertaken by the Immigration Officers of our own Department of Immigration.
Clearly it's going to take some time to establish exactly what has happened here. We expect that there will be a WA Coronial investigation, which will cover all of these events in detail. The scope of that investigation will be determined by the Coroner. There will also be a criminal investigation under Australia's people smuggling laws. There will be an immediate review carried out by Customs and Border Protection, this will involve and initial collection of facts and the initial assessment indentifying any immediate action required. The information from that assessment will be provided to the Australian Federal Police, in the context of their investigation and their anticipated report to the Coroner.
I believe it is vital that the truth, every fact, about this tragic incident is known to decision makers and to the general public. I'm sure that each Parliamentarian and every member of the Australian community would see it that way, they would want to know what the facts are.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Opposition for their very responsible approach and responsible public commentary as this matter has unfolded and while search and rescue operations are still underway, as they are today.
Inevitably there will be public debate about policies relating to asylum seekers and refugees. As I've said before, I'm all in favour of frank, open and honest national conversations about policies in this area and generally. These conversations will be had as they should be had, but these conversations are best had when they're fully informed by the facts.
Whatever the debate to come about policy is, the facts are the facts. To ensure the facts are known I have decided to invite the Opposition, the Greens and the Independent Members of Parliament to work with the Government and the relevant agencies for managing the response to this incident.
Specifically, I believe it's appropriate to bring together the Ministers for Immigration and Home Affairs, that is of course Minister Chris Bowen and Minister Brendan O'Connor, together with their Shadow Ministerial counterparts, Mr Morrison and Mr Keenan, a representative of the Greens and a representative of the Independents in the Parliament, and that these people form a standing group that receives direct reports from all of the government agencies that have been involved in this incident. That includes Defence, Customs and Border Protection, the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Immigration, amongst others.
This will ensure that all have access to the same reports and insights about this very tragic incident. I believe this bipartisan reporting mechanism will assist the whole Parliament and the Australian public to understand the facts and to draw properly informed conclusions about the operational processes at work in this incident and whether in operational terms anything would be done differently should a comparable incident arise in the future.
I intend this group to first meet when the immediate response to this incident has been concluded and there is no risk of resources being diverted from the urgent search and rescue and response task. I anticipate therefore, that the group will meet before the end of the year, the group would then meet as necessary in the new year to hear further reports as more facts are established.
This is an unusual step, but one I've determined to undertake because I believe it's important that the comprehensive facts are available to all. I'll now turn to Deputy Commissioner Colvin for some comments and then we'll happily take you questions.
Thank you.
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER COLVIN: Thank you, Prime Minister.
As the Prime Minister has already said, this is a very fluid situation, and it's being conducted in what are quite difficult circumstances. Weather conditions on the island are poor, which are making very difficult for all agencies involved in the search and rescue and the recovery efforts.
From the Australian Federal Police perspective, we currently have 45 personnel on the Island. We're joined by 13 officers from the West Australia police, which we're very grateful for, as well as three officers from the West Australian Coroner's office, who'll be involved in the investigation.
Obviously enough, this is still early days in this response and recovery. Our officers are focussed today on the land-based search, and gradually, over time, that will transition to a focus on both the Coronial investigation and the criminal investigation that the Prime Minister has mentioned.
As part of that, we will need to go through the necessary disaster victim identification process. Many of you are familiar with that process. It is a difficult process and can sometimes take time and we are in the very early stages of that at the moment.
At this stage, there's not a lot more that I can say to you that the Prime Minister has not already said. As more details become available today we'll be, obviously, speaking to those survivors and talking, as well, to eye witnesses and getting accounts of what they saw, and piecing together exactly what happened yesterday morning.
Thank you.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, do you have any information yet on how the boat got so close to Christmas Island without being detected?
PM: The advice to me is that the boat approached Christmas Island when it was dark and in extreme weather conditions, and consequently the boat wasn't detected until it was seen from Christmas Island itself.
JOURNALIST: Just a question on the response time, how long did it take rescuers to arrive at the scene of the incident after they'd been alerted to the presence of the boat? How long did it take them to get to (inaudible) to the scene and (inaudible)
PM: Well, can I refer you to a timeline that is in the process of being released by Customs and the Border Protection Service, so that will be available to you in writing. That constitutes the best advice to me.
What I can say to you of that advice provided by Customs and the Border Protection Service is that it was at 5.48am local time - of course, Christmas Island has a 4-hour time difference from the east coast of Australia - 5.48am local time yesterday that Border Protection Command was notified that a vessel had been sighted 200m from Rocky Point, Christmas Island. At approximately 6am local time HMAS Pirie was tasked to respond to that sighting. At approximately 6.31am local time Australian Federal Police officers on Christmas Island reported sighting the vessel being was onto the shoreline at Rocky Point, causing the people on board to be thrown into the water, and then the timeline that has been provided by Customs and Border Protection continues that at approximately 6.35am local time HMAS Pirie requested the assistance of the Customs vessel Triton to respond. The Triton immediately responded, and then that the tender - that is, the inflatable craft you've seen pictures of, or various craft, I should say, there was more than one of them - from the HMAS Pirie arrived on the scene at approximately 7.01am local time and rescue operations commenced.
So, that written timeline will be available to you. It's being released by Customs and Border Protection.
JOURNALIST: So that's - sorry - that's an hour and 13 minutes from the point at which the boat was first sighted. How far away from the scene were they, because they were on the lee side of the Island? Is that correct?
PM: That's right, they were on the lee side of the Island, and I was advised this morning that in terms of the distances in those kind of weather conditions, we're talking about a transit of least 30 minutes from where they were round to where the incident happens, but can I just say let's be very, very careful here. These things will become clearer over time. This is the best timeline that has been made available at this stage.
JOURNALIST: Are you satisfied - sorry, just a final question on that point - are you satisfied with the adequacy and the timeliness of that response? Is that (inaudible)
PM: To that I want to say two things. I certainly want to congratulate the Navy personnel and the Customs personnel who put themselves in harm's way in difficult and dangerous seas to rescue people whose lives were at risk, and tragically a number of them have died.
In terms of the operational questions here about responses, about clarifying all of these matters, I think that that will occur in the days to come. What history teaches us about these incidents is that it does take some time to establish the facts. We will need to work through to establish those facts, and one of the reasons that I've determined it's the appropriate course to bring together Government Ministers, Opposition representatives and other representatives from the parliament is as the facts become clearer and clearer they are known to everyone.
JOURNALIST: But Prime Minister, do you acknowledge that the fact that no-one knew this boat was one its way until it was almost crashing on the cliffs indicates that there's a problem with the surveillance system?
PM: I think what it indicates, on the advice to me, is that in very rough and very difficult circumstances there are clearly limits. Minister O'Connor has been dealing with this question today and has been very clear that in very rough and dangerous seas there is a limit to what can be achieved through the use of radar and other surveillance mechanisms.
I'll go there and then go here.
JOURNALIST: Thank you. Your Government has attracted a great deal of criticism over its handling of boat people. You're inviting the Opposition, the Greens and the Independents to have their say. Are you in fact admitting defeating and you just don't know how to go forward or handle this situation?
PM: Well, you've misrepresented what I've just said to you. What I've said to you is that I thought it was important that across the parliament we had a mechanism so people could hear reports from the relevant agencies and so everybody could have a comprehensive view of the facts. Whatever policy view people take the facts are the facts, and I think it's important that all parliamentarians and members of the public have access to the facts. That's why I set this body up.
JOURNALIST: Have you talked to the Opposition about this?
PM: Yes, I have. I've had the opportunity, a short time ago, to speak to Mr Abbott. He is in Japan, as I think is well-known publically. We did contact his Chief of Staff earlier in the day and then were able to make a call to him, so I have indicated to him that I'll be making these public statements and seeking to bring together this group.
I also asked Minister Bowen to have the same discussion with his counterpart, Mr Morrison. Mr Morrison is in Sydney today and that discussion did occur between the two of them a little bit earlier today.
JOURNALIST: They accepted the invitation?
PM: Well, what Mr Abbott and Mr Morrison have said is that they, of course, do want access to briefings, but I'll allow Mr Morrison - he available in Australia, clearly Mr Abbott is overseas - but Mr Morrison will probably want to convey his own views himself, so better if he does that than I endeavour to do it for him.
JOURNALIST: Just on the question of policy, Prime Minister - last July at the Lowy Institute you said, and I quote, that 'there is nothing humane about a voyage across dangerous seas with the ever-present risk of death in leaky boats captained by people smugglers.'
Now, doesn't it follow from that, from your own words, that it's morally incumbent on your Government now to do whatever it takes, within reason, to stop these boats from coming, including a much tougher set of border protection policies?
PM: Well, the Government does have a tough set of border protection policies. We've got more assets patrolling Australia's borders than we've ever had before.
What I would say to you as well is Australia's history teaches us that when people set sail with people smugglers in vessels trying to get to this country, tragically that can end in loss of life. It's happened in the past. It's happened in the last 24 hours.
We are not alone in confronting these circumstances. If we look right around the world, we see people who are seeking to move, flee war and persecution, and tragically a number of them die in the hands of people smugglers in the attempt, so let's not lose sight of the fact there is a real responsibility here on the shoulders of people smugglers who ply an evil trade attempting to profit on human misery, and the plying of that evil trade too often ends in tragedy and loss of life.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, I know you said you wanted to wait for the facts, but the slamming has begun by commentators saying that you've got blood on your hands. Do you feel like you've got blood on your hands?
PM: Well, look, I believe in dealing with the facts. I believe in making sure that the facts are available. I want to again congratulate the Opposition and thank the Opposition for the responsible approach they've taken to this incident, the responsible approach they've taken to public commentary on it, when search and rescue is underway and where, inevitably, not all of the facts are to hand and facts will become clearer in coming days. That's the responsible approach the Opposition has taken.
We'll go there and come forward.
JOURNALIST: It seems that there won't be a full, independent, judicial inquiry into what's happened?
PM: Well, I'll actually have our Deputy Commissioner comment on this too, but there will be, we anticipate, a Coronial inquest. Interestingly, the Coronial responsibilities on Christmas Island are undertaken out of Western Australia, and so it would be the WA Coroner who is responsible for that Coronial inquest, and the WA Coroner would set the scope and terms of how they would go about that inquest task.
Of course, there will be an Australian Federal Police investigation into the criminal potentials of this. People smuggling is illegal, and so there will be an Australian Federal Police investigation.
What I have also announced today is that I would bring together a group of parliamentarians across the parliament to be able to have access to the continuing streams of reports from agencies involved in handling this matter so the facts of it can be available across the parliament.
But I will ask Deputy Commissioner Colvin if he wants to add on investigations.
DEUPTY COMMISSIONER COLVIN: Thank you, Prime Minister.
I think it's fair to say that we don't want to pre-suppose the breadth of what the West Australian Coroner decides or determines, as is his right a duty to do how broad he wants his investigation to be.
Obviously, the investigation that we will conduct, along with West Australia police, will help him inform the breadth of his inquiry, as well as inform our own criminal investigation. I'm sure the full facts of the matter will come out in that.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just on this bipartisan working group that you set up - one way of looking at this group would to be to say that this is a Government attempting to share its political risk on this and its political liability on this by turning the aftermath of this terrible tragedy into some sort of bipartisan exercise.
What do you say to that observation or interpretation?
PM: There's one motivation behind putting this group together, and that's to make sure people have got the facts.
Now, people will take different views about the policy, they'll take different views about what they want to say in the public domain. I'm all for open, frank national conversations. I'm all for policy discussions and debate. I made that very clear when I first spoke about the question of asylum seeker and refugee policy at the Lowy Institute, but that debate is best had informed by facts, and what we know from past instances in this area of policy is that there have times when there have been a lot of misunderstand and a lot of debate about the facts.
Well, I want the facts to be known. I want them to be understood. The facts are the facts. They're not a matter of debate. They can be shown and proved and demonstrated to people, and then when everybody's got the facts then the policy debate can then happen informed by the facts.
That's my motivation in bringing this group together to make sure the Government, the Opposition, other parliamentarians and therefore the national conversation is informed by the facts.
JOURNALIST: Did you seek or receive any undertaking from the Opposition in these discussions about not attempting to politicise this issue?
PM: No, I did not seek one, and certainly none was volunteered. No, that is not what this is about at all. This is about what I've just said - it's about ensuring that people have got access to the facts.
JOURNALIST: Just one question on the relationship between facts and policy, it's a fact that during the years of the Pacific Solution a very small handful of boats arrives and since its dismantling in 2008 you've had, I think, more than 200 now. Do you accept that there is any relationship between what was done in 2008 and the onflow of boats that we've seen since then? Any relationship, causal relationship, at all?
PM: Let's go through policies here. We see circumstances change around the world as to what gets people moving, circumstances change and for example - to deal with something that's been quite contemporary - when we saw the situation in Sri Lanka become more acute with the country at one point, effectively in a civil war that caused people to get on the move. So these things happen, we see world events change, cause people to get on the move. What I certainly accept is that as Prime Minister, as the Government of this country, we've got an obligation to strongly protect our borders and we do.
JOURNALIST: Is there any way to treat these people any differently, will the survivors of this disaster be waking up behind the fences of the Christmas Island Detention Centre tomorrow?
PM: People will be cared for as necessary depending on their personal circumstances, as I have indicated there are some who require medical assistance that can only be provided in Perth. Our Immigration Officials will deal with this on a case by case basis, but people will go through assessments at the appropriate point and we are talking, people are obviously going to need time to recover from this dreadful incident, but people will at the appropriate point go through assessments of their claims.
JOURNALIST: Will they stay in detention until that point?
PM: As you would be aware we relatively recently announced some new policies about detention, about the circumstances in which people, how people will be detained, so those policies will apply to these individuals as well and there is clearly some case by case assessments there as to the circumstances in which people are detained, but as a Government we are very firm on having a mandatory detention policy.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you say you're waiting for the facts to come in, as the facts do come in, if the facts do prove that the policy has flaws, will you then change the policy, are you open to that?
PM: The Government makes policy decisions, that's our job and we've made policy decisions, we've made policy decisions to have strong protection of our borders, with more assets patrolling our borders than ever before. We've made policy decision to have a strong mandatory detention system. We've made policy decision to ensure that claims are assessed rigorously and that people whose claims are not bona fide claims to be refugees that arrangements are made for them to return to their country of origin, that's part of our policy setting. And of course our policy setting includes strong cooperation with our region, indeed Minister Bowen has very recently been in Geneva pursuing this dialogue with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees about regional processing in the Regional Processing Centre. So they're the government's policies, but the group that I'm bringing together, I'm bringing together so that there is a common understanding of the facts here, the facts are the facts. If we look back in Australia's history there has been times when people have long debated what the facts of a particular incident are, I don't want us doing that, I want everybody to have access to the information and to understand what the facts of this matter are.
JOURNALIST: Just a question going back for a moment to the incident itself, you said in your opening remarks that a number of deceased were young people and children. Can you tell us exactly how many children are known to be among the dead and whether or not there is a feeling that this was one of those boats that was loaded with, there were a lot of families on board it would seem, according to eyewitness accounts, is that your information that there were a number of families on this?
PM: I don't have any information that I can give you about the question of loading of the boat. I can't help you with that. On the question of the deceased and numbers of men and women and children, I believe that that information will be made available; obviously our Customs and Border Protection people are making information available as best they can. So I will leave it to them to finalise that information to make sure it's accurate and released at the appropriate time.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, do you know if the people smugglers themselves, or the skipper, or the people smuggling operators were on the boat and survived?
PM: Well, I may defer to the Australian Federal Police on that.
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER COLVIN: Prime Minister, look it's too early for us to be categorical, we're working through the process of who survived and who the deceased are, that will form part of the DPI process and also as we interview people, obviously we will ascertain what their role is, but it would be presumptuous for me to try and answer that now.
JOURNALIST: At 5:48 Prime Minister, just back to the timeline, was Border Protection Command told that this is a vessel in distress or were they just alerted to the existence of this vessel?
PM: I'm not in a position to take you through word by word what people were told at that stage, as I've said we've got to be cautious here, I think we all recall incidents in the past where perhaps assumptions were made and things said that later didn't prove to be right, I'd rather take the cautious approach and as facts are available, then I'm specifically setting up a mechanism to ensure that those facts come to public attention.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Tony Kevin , he was a former diplomat and whistleblower over the SIEV X disaster in 2001, in which 303 people died, (inaudible) border protection in Australia in situations such as this, (inaudible)
PM: What I think is necessary are the things that are announced.
JOURNALIST: Just on the boat itself, you said it wasn't being - it just sort of slipped in past under the cover of night. Did we have any information on the existence of this boat from the Indonesian side, we get pretty good intel out of Indonesia, did we know that this boat had got in, was on our radar in that sense?
PM: Well the advice to me is that this boat was not sighted until the time that I've given you when it was sighted from Christmas Island, and we do have to be very clear here, we're talking about very difficult weather conditions, very difficult weather conditions.
JOURNALIST: I was just wondering if you had any discussions with your Indonesian counterparts about this particular boat?
PM: No, I haven't had discussions with Indonesian counterparts about this incident; obviously my focus has been on being briefed about search and rescue operations and management of the incident, which is still continuing. You've got to remember of course we've got people out there now who are looking hopefully for survivors, though we do have to brace ourselves for the likelihood that they will identify more people who have died in this incident.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: Look Minister O'Connor is there and is consequently about to provide me with direct reports from Christmas Island.
JOURNALIST: Why shouldn't there be an independent commission of inquiry, in the search for facts why should we rely on the Opposition or the Greens or the Independents?
PM: You've just been advised that there will be a Western Australian Coronial inquiry, you've also been advised in my opening statement to you that there will be an assessment by Customs as I outlined.
JOURNALIST: Are you going to resume your holidays or are your holidays off?
PM: Well I did return to work yesterday having had a few days off and I will make some assessments about what's the appropriate thing to do next, I haven't spent any time considering that question yet.
Thank you.