Operation Sovereign Borders

The appointed ministers, initially Scott Morrison and subsequently Peter Dutton, refused to release information on asylum seeker boat arrivals as they occurred,[6] and a weekly media briefing was announced.

[9] On 10 July 2014, Morrison stated that the secrecy policy was put in place by Lieutenant General Campbell, which had been rigorously implemented by ministers, their advisers, and various government departments.

[15] Lieutenant General Campbell told a Senate Estimates committee that, two months into the OSB program, no boats had been purchased because Indonesia did not support the idea, although he stated that the measure remained available.

[16] The government runs a "communication campaign to counter people smuggling" with advertisements in multiple languages,[17] targeting "press, radio, social and search media" across Australia.

[21][22][23] In response, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Richard Marles claimed there was a 40 per cent reduction in arrivals in the month following the introduction of the Regional Resettlement Arrangement with Papua New Guinea, shortly before the 2013 election.

[37] In January 2015, Minister Dutton announced that 15 vessels, containing 429 asylum seekers in total, had been subject to turnback operations of some kind towards Indonesia or Sri Lanka since the beginning of OSB.

[39] In July 2015, Labor Shadow Minister Richard Marles conceded that "Offshore processing and regional resettlement, together with the Coalition's policy of turn-backs, is what actually stopped the boats.

"[40] On 6 August 2015, the new immigration minister Peter Dutton announced it had been 12 months since the last successful people smuggling operation, with the last SIEV arriving in Australia's care in July 2014.

[49] On 26 September 2013, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa took the "unusual step" of releasing details of his talks about the policy with his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop,[50] which was later blamed on a clerical error.

[57][58] Several journalists and media outlets have expressed concern and frustration over the tightly controlled release of information about Operation Sovereign Borders, usually restricted to the weekly briefings held on Friday afternoons.

[59] On 22 January 2014, the ABC broadcast allegations that Royal Australian Navy personnel had mistreated asylum seekers during an OSB operation, including video footage of passengers receiving medical treatment in Indonesia for burns on their hands, which they claimed were sustained when they were forced to touch a hot boat engine.

[63] On 7 February, Yousif Ibrahim Fasher repeated the initial allegations, as well as several further claims of mistreatment and possible breaches of maritime law in an interview with a Fairfax correspondent.