Four non-citizens reportedly found on remote Croker Island in the Northern Territory have been removed from Australia.
The ABC reported the four foreign nationals were found on Monday on the island north of Garig Gunak Barlu national park, near Arnhem land.
Guardian Australia understands the four people are no longer in Australia, but the government won’t say if this means they have been taken back to their country of departure, of origin, or to the regional processing centre on Nauru.
An Australian Border Force spokesperson said it “does not confirm or comment on operational matters”.
A spokesperson for the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said: “No people smuggling ventures have been successful under our government. People who come to Australia by boat have zero chance of success.”
The shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, said that “if confirmed, this will be the eighth boat that has breached our borders and reached the Australian territory since Labor was elected, and the 23rd attempted people smuggling venture to attempt the journey to Australia”.
The latter figure includes boat turnbacks and take backs, which the Albanese government performs due to its bipartisan support for the Operation Sovereign Borders policy enacted by the Coalition since 2013.
According to ABF statistics, a total of 38 boats between December 2013 and January 2020 were turned back (to their country of departure), taken back (where those intercepted are handed over to another government) or involved in an “assisted return” (where a vessel is in distress).
Under the Coalition people-smuggling ventures made it to Australian territory including arrivals at the Cocos Keeling Islands in May 2016, Saibai Island in August 2017, and far-north Queensland in mid 2018.
Despite that record the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, claimed on Tuesday that “our borders are not secure under the Albanese government”. “How does a boat reach our mainland undetected?”
“People smugglers clearly see Australia’s borders as open for business again under Anthony Albanese’s weak leadership,” he said in a statement posted to X.
The ABF revealed in its latest monthly update that in September seven unauthorised maritime arrivals from “one maritime people smuggling venture were safely transferred to a regional processing country consistent with Australia’s longstanding maritime people smuggling policies”.
Nauru was emptied as an offshore processing centre in June 2023, but was reanimated in September 2023 because, as Guardian Australia revealed, a group of 11 asylum seekers had been sent to the island, the first such transfer in nine years.
People smuggling ventures reached Western Australia in November and February, resulting in heightened political criticism by the Coalition against the Labor government’s handling of borders.
A further 37 people were sent to Nauru in May from two people-smuggling ventures which reached Christmas Island and arrived near Broome.
