'We don't want to be pulling bodies out of the water again': Border chief's chilling warning after Labor MPs push to give permanent residency to 10,000 illegal asylum seekers
- Outgoing Operation Sovereign Borders chief warned about people smugglers
- Air Vice-Marshal Stephen Osborne said smuggling operations were 'suppressed'
- Fears implications for Australian Defence Force if the boats were to start again
- Political debate over border protection and national security has escalated
- 10,000 asylum seekers granted permanent protection under Labor proposal
People smugglers will be closely watching Australia's political debate over border protection for cues to restart the trade, the outgoing chief of Operation Sovereign Borders has warned.
Air Vice-Marshal Stephen Osborne said people smuggling will be around for as 'long as we can see' as he prepared to hand over the reigns to new commander Major General Craig Furini this Friday.
He described people smuggling operations as 'suppressed' rather than defeated and doesn't want Australia to be put in a situation where the Defence Force is 'pulling bodies out of the water'.
Departing Operation Sovereign Borders Commander Air Vice-Marshal Stephen Osborne (pictured) advice to his successor was to 'play a straight bat'
'We know what the implications are for the ADF, let alone the rest of the country, if the boats were to start again,' Air Vice-Marshal Osborne told The Australian on Wednesday.
'There is a strong motivation to get it right … I don’t want to be back — and Craig doesn’t want to be back — where our people are pulling bodies out of the water again.'
He said media reporting, parliamentary debate or surveys about people's attitude to border protection could be used by people smugglers.
'We know people smugglers will use any means they can whether they are true or not … all they need is that bit of a lever, that bit of a wedge … to try and sell that the path to Australia is open again,' Air Vice-Marshal Osborne said.
A decorated soldier and military planner, Major General Furini will be the fourth Operation Sovereign Borders commander since it was established in 2013.
He vowed to offer 'frank and fearless' advice to the government based on 'the best information at the time'.
Air Vice-Marshal Osborne's advice to his successor was to 'play a straight bat'.
'The reality is that it doesn't matter what happens: you will get one side of the political side of the spectrum or the other, you'll upset somebody,' he said.
The political battle over border protection and national security has escalated in recent weeks, where the Coalition Government accused Labor of softening its stance on border protection after the opposition supported medical transfer measures for people in offshore processing.
Labor backed a bill which cleared the Senate last week allowing asylum seekers to be transferred to Australia for treatment on the advice of two doctors.
If elected at the next federal election, the Labor government is looking to gift residency to up to 10,000 asylum seekers in Australia
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Immigration Minister David Coleman have led the attacks on the opposition, saying Labor has watered down its stance.
But Labor's commitment to boat turnbacks and offshore processing isn't expected to end at next week's national conference, with key factional figures locking in behind existing policy.
Labor's national conference in Adelaide this weekend will consider a motion to end offshore processing of boat arrivals by scrapping 'indefinite detention' on Manus Island and Nauru.
Under the left faction's proposal, almost 10,000 asylum seekers would be granted permanent protection in Australia should Labor win next year's federal election as widely predicted by opinion polls.
The end result would be permanent residency for asylum seekers deemed genuine refugees, with full work and welfare rights.
Opposition Leader Bil Shorten (pictured) Mr Shorten, who hails from the right faction, said on Monday the ALP was committed to ' turning boats back where it is safe to do so.'
Inner Melbourne-based left faction Labor backbencher Ged Kearney, a former ACTU leader, is leading the charge to end offshore detention, putting her at odds with Labor leader Bill Shorten.
'Labor's goal must be to get everyone held in offshore detention to safety and build a framework that could mean nobody actually has to go to offshore-processing facilities,' Kearney wrote in the party's left faction Challenge.
Mr Shorten, who hails from the right faction, said on Monday the ALP was committed to 'turning boats back where it is safe to do so.'
'This government should have done more to resettle people elsewhere around the world than they have, and that's what we'll do.'
Mr Shorten predicted the left faction's radical proposals would be unsuccessful on the floor of the national conference.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said Labor's left faction proposal smacked of ignorance.
'Labor's reckless border failures have cost our country dearly,' Mr Dutton told The Australian.
'Cleaning up the dreadful mess of 50,000 illegal arrivals is costing us hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and will for years to come — money that could otherwise have been spent on Australians, but is sucked up dealing with these people.
'It's frightening that Labor has clearly learned nothing and is ready to do it again.
'The boats will restart under Labor.'
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton (pictured) said Labor's left faction proposal smacked of ignorance
Temporary protection visas, reintroduced by the Coalition in 2013, allow illegal boat arrivals to stay in Australia until it is deemed safe to return home.
There have been more than 64,000 applications for protection visas since 2015 from people who arrived legally on a plane.
Senior Labor frontbenchers have dismissed suggestions an ugly stoush on border protection could overshadow the ALP's national conference, as the Coalition zeros in on the issue.
Tanya Plibersek, federal Labor's deputy leader who hails from the Left faction, is throwing her support behind Mr Shorten at the expense of her own ideological supporters within her party.
'Offshore processing and boat turn backs, yes I support current Labor policy,' the inner-Sydney based MP said.
'But I also believe we can get people off Manus and Nauru. I believe we can bring more people here and bring them safely.'
Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek (pictured), who hails from the Left faction, is throwing her support behind Mr Shorten at the expense of her own ideological supporters within her party
Senior Labor frontbencher Tony Burke, whose western Sydney electorate has Australia's highest proportion of Muslims, was confident there would be no changes to Labor's existing boat turn backs and offshore processing policies.
'There's a debate about these issues every conference,' he told Sky News on Monday.
When Labor was last in government, it abolished temporary protections visas in 2008 soon after coming to power.
It also ended offshore detention on Nauru and Manus Island but this led to a surge in boat arrivals, and included the death of 48 asylum seekers in December 2010 after their illegal vessel attempted to land at Christmas Island.
When Kevin Rudd briefly became prime minister again in 2013, he reinstated offshore processing at Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, and vowed asylum seekers who arrived by boat would never settle in Australia.
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