The Hon Tony Burke MP

Illegal boats, Operation BROADSTAFF, Joint Organised Crime Taskforce. CHARLIE MCKILLOP: That's Pete Murray, Better Days, the name of the song on ABC Far North. I'm sure that the Federal Home Affairs Minister felt like he was having better days a month ago when an unlawful boat turned up on a popular beach north of Weipa reported by locals, and people involved were apprehended after that tip-off.

At the time the Minister said that he felt that the system was working because they were found, and now that he's in the region, I wonder if he's changed his opinion. Tony Burke, it's a great pleasure to welcome you back to ABC Far North and to the region. TONY BURKE: Great to be back in the studio.

Can you understand why the notion that the border security arrangements are working because boats are being found after they reach the Australian mainland might rub locals up the wrong way? We've got the most complicated border in the country, and, yeah, I'd always - seeing the maps, this is the first trip where I've made it to Saibai and the appreciation that somebody is 20 minutes away, and the expertise of locals in being able to identify who should be there, who shouldn't be there is just phenomenal, but we do have the most complex border here, and the people who see and report the information to Border Watch straight away, our eyes and ears across the entire coastline play a phenomenal job.

And I will say I was proud of the fact that when people saw on the news the images of those people arriving, by the time they woke up the next day, they'd left Australia, they were gone; the only two who were still in Australia were locked up. Because, you know, the people who are willing to break the law and run those vessels, whether it's illegal fishing, whether it's drugs, whether it's trafficking in people or trying to move people illegally, what matters is that they see very publicly they do not get away with it and see very publicly, as we've been doing since we started Operation Broadstaff that vessels get intercepted and that vessels get destroyed, they lose the catch, the vessel gets destroyed, the people who made landfall were either removed from the country overnight or - or if they were the people actually running part of the operation, they were locked up.

You say that you're proud of the fact that they were removed from Australia so quickly. Why was there so much secrecy around those ircumstances, not only of their arrival but also what happened afterwards to those that were on board? The people who want - anything you provide publicly you don't just provide to the Australian people, you provide it to the people who want to break the system as well.

That's the reality. There's no way of providing information publicly without the smugglers hearing it too. And effectively the last thing, the last thing I think Australians would ever want me to do would be to provide a how-to guide about our systems to people who want to break them.

So there's always levels of transparency, that if the only people listening were Australians, you'd provide it straight up. But when the people who will also hear the message are the people trying to find a way around your systems, that means there's information you've got to keep tight. In the national security area, which is where I am, there is a lot of information which you just have to keep tight, because there are people who want to break our systems.

Okay. So what can you tell us about those people now? Are they safe where they are?

They are out of Australia, they had no right to be in Australia. You know, people don't get harmed in that sense, the – But I mean if they were here to exercise their right to apply for asylum, that is a right that was denied to them. It is the case that we have a system for people who come here on visas where we provide humanitarian support for people.

But if you turn up on a boat, it's been the situation in Australia by law for a long time, if you turn up without a visa, you get removed from Australia, that's what happens, and it needs to happen, and the alternative - I saw an alternative back in 2013, I was Immigration Minister for only three months, I managed to change some systems and we had a 90 per cent reduction in the number of boats that were am coming in those three months.

I take this stuff seriously. But we cannot have a situation where people just decide on their own, without Australia agreeing, that they're going to turn up. Tony Burke, your guest on ABC Far North.

Tony Burke, you've also been Environment Minister now responsible for Home Affairs and Immigration and Citizenship. How do you respond to gillnet fishers who have long warned that the more that they are pushed out of those very creeks and estuaries that are being targeted by not only illegal fishers but potentially people smugglers, the fewer eyes and ears that you have on watch effectively around our porous borders, are you more empathetic to that view in your current portfolio?

I've got to say in terms of the different fishing rules here, back in 2010 I was well across all of this, I'm just not going to give an answer on the fly, I'm sorry about that. What I will say is the eyes and ears that are provided to us by rec fishers, by commercial fishers, by people who see something and get on to the - you know, they Google Border Watch, they put information through straight away, for a coastline as vast as ours and a border as complex as the one here, all of that information is taken seriously and makes a huge difference.

Okay. So in terms of our borders, our relationship status is "it's complicated". Does that mean that we should be putting more – I should say - no, no, no, sorry, I think that's unfair, to be honest.

Well, I'm just directly quoting you. No, no, no but let - what we're talking about with this border is we are so close and there are vessels where, unless you've got people who are the highly trained localise and ears, to someone, if I send extra resources up from Canberra, for example, they won't know the difference. I'll give you the simplest example.

There were two people who I, just by chance met, two men I met with at the pub on Thursday Island where I was staying. Now their names were Peter and Wolfgang. They both, as it happens, work for Border Force.

Peter's been working for Border Force since the year 2000, Wolfgang since 1996. They started when it was an hour a day. They know everyone and can recognise quickly whether you're from a village that is meant to be there or whether you're someone who's not.

In terms of those eyes and ears and being able to have that depth of local knowledge, and you know, we're talking about to 30 years of professional dedication to looking after the border, yeah, their work is complicated, their work is complicated, and they are out there doing it, and that sort of expertise is not easily replaced, and that sort of expertise is what we need to rely on.

So, yes, it's complex, but to refer to it as a relationship status, it's complicated, in fairness I think it's a hard stretch to say that's what I said. Well, the point that I was trying to make, whether you appreciate my terminology or not, is the fact that if it's so complex, could more resources – could more Peter and Wolfgangs be engaged in the process, because that is something that community leaders have long argued – -- that we fly in people from elsewhere to protect our borders, expect locals to be the eyes and ears, but aren't willing to pay them.

And this is exactly why the tone of all the meetings that I had on Thursday on Saibai out at Bamaga as well were on the basis of how do we improve this partnership, because it's the only partnership that's going to work, it's the only partnership that has caused the increase through Operation Broadstaff that we've seen. I mean to have had those interdictions go up to 23 this year, 13 vessels destroyed, every one of those interdictions, they lose their catch completely, to have situations now where people are under arrest, other people getting removed from Australia straight away, that sort of increase needed to happen, it's because of the partnership and the foundation we're building on.

Does it need to go further? Absolutely. That's why I've come here.

And just, if you were at the pub that I'm thinking about, you could have, you know, you don't need - it wasn't covert, the locals were sitting on the front bar at the Grand Hotel watching boats coming across Thursday Island Harbour in completely brazen circumstances. This does just seem to be at the cusp of something that has been quite extraordinary, the increase in incursions, which makes locals and others believe that we are being seen as a soft target.

Yeah, could I - what the illegal fishers have been doing is effectively - when I first came into the role off to the northwest, off the Kimberley, we had a huge increase that was happening there. We did a very specific increase in our work there. They then started to move east.

The problem started in the Northern Territory. We then increased there and we got on top of it there. We knew that they'd start moving east further, so we started our conversations in the Torres Strait, but sure enough, before we'd started Operation Broadstaff they had started to come here.I know we get on top of this, because I've seen us get on top of it elsewhere.

This is - this is a much closer border than we're looking at in the northwest or above the Top End where we're, you know, so close to Papua New Guinea, you've got a very different circumstance here, but you also have - you also have people across those islands and fishers across those islands who are able to help with the reporting and increase that partnership.

Tony Burke, we also learned after that incident involving people smuggling that, abhorrent as it is, that activity is not necessarily within the direct remit of the recently formed Joint Organised Crime Taskforce. Has that changed? Oh, well, I was briefed on these issues at the Joint Taskforce during my trip here, I had a very intense briefing.

The work that's being done there, Border Force, the Australian Federal Police and Queensland Police, you don't find many examples of where it is just so cohesive and people have the determination to deal with the mission together. So on – But it didn't find this boat. Oh, the situation will always be that you have a circumstance where you are trying to intercept every single vessel before it gets here, and you need to make sure that they realise it won't work for them.

So did they reach shore on this occasion? Yes, they did. What happened?

The two people who were there as part of the ground operation, arrested, behind bars. Everybody else, gone. In terms of what does that mean for the next operation, they have up in lights "this will not work".

So you are confident that a successful landing like this exposes vulnerabilities, but it's not something that's a more - a bigger underlying systemic problem? There's not a single people smuggler who would regard that as a success, to have their own people under arrest and everyone who'd paid the money out of the country. That's not what they paid for, that's not what that trade wants, and Border Force and the community that help with the reporting and the Queensland Police, the Australian Federal Police, the way everybody worked together and made sure that nothing there could be seen as a success is something that we should be proud of.

Federal Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration and Citizenship, Tony Burke, thanks very much for dropping by. Great to be back.