Australian Border Force secretly buying $400k boats for people smugglers intercepted off North West coast

Australian Border Force is secretly buying crayfishing boats in Geraldton and giving them to people smugglers intercepted off the North West coast.

Asylum seekers aboard unseaworthy vessels are transferred to the safer cray boats before being turned back to Indonesia.

The mid-ocean handover is designed to limit the chance of would-be refugees drowning on the return journey, given the boats they are on are often dangerously overloaded and rickety.

The Albanese Government declined to comment on the policy, which has seen the Mid-West’s crayfishing industry cash in on demand for boats.

Owners are happy to take the top-dollar bids but are quietly shaking their heads at the amount of money being spent.

The West Australian has obtained photos of some of the recently sold vessels and understands the ABF is paying up to $400,000 per boat.

Government buyers are not picky about the state of the vessel as long as the motor is reliable.

Owners are told they can strip anything out of the vessel they want but navigational equipment and safety gear must remain on board.

“At the end of the day a people smuggler ends up with a pretty expensive vessel so a lot of us don’t understand how this is going to be anything other than an incentive to keep coming down in crappy boats,” one crayfishing veteran told The West Australian.

It is understood the purchased boats are taken to Darwin and towed behind ABF ships on patrol in preparation for mid-sea transfers.

It is not known whether the Australian Government has a mechanism to retrieve the gifted boats when they reach a safe port.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke referred questions to Australian Border Force.

The ABF declined to comment on the basis it was an “operational matter” but it is understood the agency regularly buys private boats to use in training and marine operations.

There were several asylum seeker boats intercepted off the WA coast last year, including in February when a group of foreign nationals were found wandering in bush near Beagle Bay in the Kimberley.

The group was understood to have got on a boat from Indonesia. They were then transported to Nauru.

In May last year, another group of more than 30 asylum seekers were also sent to Nauru after they were found on Christmas Island. Their boat had been damaged in bad weather.

A month earlier, a group of Chinese nationals arrived undetected at Mungalalu-Truscott airbase in the Kimberley.

One of those arrivals prompted a frantic search in the Mitchell Plateau after he became separated from the group. He was eventually found and the group of 10 were sent to Nauru for processing.

And in November 2023, a dozen people from Indonesia arrived undetected at the Mungalalu-Truscott airbase after trekking through treacherous terrain for two days in 35C heat.