Asylum seekers cut costs: "Please come and get us"
The global financial crisis is affecting everyone it seems. On the back of rising global unemployment figures, Australia alone saw 21,400 jobs slashed in June.
Unemployment and cost cutting appears to be hitting all sectors and despite falling airline ticket prices, a stronger dollar and Australia’s open-door insta visa policy, the people smuggling industry is no different.
Operating out of the heart of Indonesia, smugglers have increasingly had to come up with new creative ways to cut costs when offering luxurious all inclusive paid trips from the middle east to Australia.
Previous cost cutting measures have included people smugglers sinking boats before they get to Australia (after fees have been paid by asylum shoppers of course) and setting their boats on fire when caught (probably to claim insurance money back in Indonesia).
The latest attempt at cost cutting by Indonesian smugglers is much more daring albeit safer then their previous attempts to maximise profits.
A boatload of 74 opportunists set sail from Indonesia and shortly afterwards contacted accomplices in Pakistan. In turn they then contacted Asylum shopper sympathiser Ian Rintoul of the group ‘Solidarity’.
Rintoul then got in touch with passengers onboard the boat and then contacted the Australian Federal Police (AFP) hoping to get the opportunists into Australian waters. The AFP then sent their own text messages (honestly does anyone use a phone for talking anymore?) to Indonesian authorities and a search was launched.
Mr Rintoul said he had three conversations with passengers on the boat after he received the message at 5am on Wednesday.
“They kept saying, ‘We need help, we need help, there are people in distress, we’re taking on water,” Mr Rintoul told The Australian.
“I kept saying, ‘Where are you, where are you?’ but I couldn’t make any sense of it.”
Mr Rintoul said he received four or five text messages from one of the passengers.
The last one read: “I dont know da location. My mb has no power now. I cnt contact u anymore. May God help us.”
Cunning isn’t it. Set sail from Indonesia, get your friends back in Pakistan to raise the alarm with asylum sympathisers in Australia and then send out staged messages sparking both Australia and Indonesia to waste thousands if not millions on search and ‘rescue’.
Then of course we’d bring them in for a cup of coffee and a chat before working out their Centrelink contracts and legal position to sue the government for having unsafe waters around Australia.
Despite refusing to contact Rintoul, the opportunists maintained contact with their Pakistan contacts who then relayed to Rintoul that they were safe and sound on an island somewhere.
After scouring all islands in the reported area and finding absolutely nothing the Indonesians have called off their search. They stopped short of calling the entire thing a hoax;
The district police had been searching the area where the accident supposedly happened, he said.
“But we have found nothing, so we doubt the truth in it.”
Judging by the search efforts of both our governments I’d say that if we do see a future similar situation it’s probably guaranteed we’ll waste money searching for them and then bringing them in. From a people smuggler business perspective this is ideal.
Why stop there though? Why not just ask the Australian navy to come and pick you up from the middle east? I’m sure Rudd would be happy to oblige.
A spokesman for Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor confirmed the boat was not the one carrying a group of 74 Afghan asylum seekers who went missing after their vessel broke down in the Sape Strait last Wednesday.
Once again Indonesian people smugglers play the Rudd government like the saps they are.
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