FEATURE: Wide open frontier

There are claims Australia's northermost border, fronting Torres Strait, is underprotected and 'porous'.

Only a short stretch of water separates southern Papua New Guinea from Australia, and PNG citizens have special rights for quick visits to Australian island territories in the strait.

But observers wonder who else could make the voyage, possibly undetected by a 'work-for-the-dole' team of island border guards.

Jeff Waters

Last Updated: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:16:00 +1100

Foreign boats arrive just about every day on Australia's Boigu and Saibai islands, in the Torres Strait.

These are sleek, long tinnies, with powerful outboard motors. Each carries about 10 Papua New Guinea nationals for the 10 or 15 minutes it takes to cross the four-kilometre stretch of water that forms Australia's only true international frontier.

On Boigu's boat ramp there is no passport control, no security screening and certainly no duty-free shop.

On the morning I was there, a solitary local immigration department officer did what appeared to be a head count and then checked the goods which were being brought in, for unwanted pests.

The residents of 13 villages along the coast of PNG's remote Western Province are allowed special rights to visit Australia without passports or normal border security checks, thanks to a cultural exchange treaty.

Welcome

Boigu's school principal, traditional owner Keith Pabai, says the neighbours are welcome to visit.

"People come to our community, we greet them, we welcome them to our community," Mr Pabai said. "We invite them for feastings . . . we work for the same things so we help each other."

Such exchanges have been happening here for tens of thousands of years, but, in recent times the relationship has changed.

Australia's governments have built infrastructure on the islands. There are schools, hospitals, shops and fresh water. On the other side of the water, the PNG villages have nothing like it.

So, according to the Torres Strait Regional Authority, an increase in visits - so as to exploit the available infrastructure - is causing strain.

Strain

Authority chairman John Toshi Kris says it is time for the treaty to be revisited. "We're now seeing a huge amount of people coming across," Mr Kris told me in his office on Thursday Island.

"Because they have no infrastructure and no sanitation on their islands when they come across, and especially at the back end of the year, in the summer time, what it does is it puts a lot of strain on our dams."

Mr Kris said the visitors are also a burden on the local health system. Back at the Boigu boat ramp, the immigration officer asked the PNG visitor if anyone was sick. "No," was the answer. But, within minutes, a group of the foreigners presented at the Boigu health clinic with their children.

The regional authority says almost 100 PNG visitors were flown last year for hospital treatment at Thursday Island, Cairns, or Townsville hospitals.

Ripe

But Mr Kris says the biggest threat in the region is not caused by the PNG neighbours. He calls the short stretch of water between the two nations a "porous border" which is ripe for exploitation by smugglers and others.

"In reality we do know that there are people travelling back and forth without being detected - that's basically the reality," Mr Kris said.
"I think it is a huge threat to Australia and the Australian government needs to be pro-active in this.

"The Australian government is focusing on the Indonesian boats; we've got lots of people coming here every day of the week.

"There's been occasions when people from other countries have come through using the border as an entry point," he said.

Having stood on Saibai Island's northern beach and gazed across at the PNG coast toward clearly evident coastal villages, I couldn't help but think how easy it would be to travel across this border undetected - particularly at night.

Mangrove

Locals told me that it would only take about four hours to travel in one of their open boats to the Australian mainland.

The question is whether or not it would be possible for a criminal to make his or her way through the swampy jungles on the northern shore - or along its mangrove-lined coast.

Australia's Department of Immigration and Citizenship relies partly on word-of-mouth to keep a watch on non-indigenous people travelling through the area.

So-called Movement Monitoring Officers are employed by the department to keep watch on who is coming and going.

John Toshi Kris may be of the opinion that it would be impossible for them to have full knowledge of who is crossing the border, but the Immigration Department is more confident in the general surveillance of the area.

Department Spokesman Sandi Logan calls it a "multi-layered" approach.

Surveillance

"I don't think anything is impossible, I think that's probably a big ask," Mr Logan said in an interview.

"Certainly under our border security regime there are many layers that ensure that where there are unlawful entries, those are brought to our attention; those are detected by officials on movement patrol out in the water in customs vessels; surveillance work by defence and others.

"It is a rarity that unlawful movements do occur and when they do they are detected and in some instances reported and action is taken immediately."

John Toshi Kris says one illustration of the government's attitude to security in the region was that much of the community policing in the area is done by people who may wear police shirts, but are actually in the financially precarious position of only being paid the unemployment benefit.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say it is well-policed, simply because the people who are policing the border are underpaid," Mr Kris said.

"Most of those people are on community development employment program or CDEP - which is work-for-the-dole."

According to the authority, almost half the Torres Strait's CDEP workers are providing government services at much lower wages than their non-indigenous colleagues elsewhere.

But Sandi Logan insists the Department of Immigration and Citizenship employees on the islands are, at least, paid normal public service wages. He says the training these officers receive is "commensurate with the job".