People from Myanmar were among the passengers on a boat that was recently stopped by authorities in Australia.It's alleged that those Australian officials paid an Indonesian smuggler and the boat's crew $30,000 to take its passengers back to Indonesia where it had originated.It's a story raising new questions about Australia's hardening immigration policies.What the Australian people are hearing is coming from Indonesia, sadly, not from our own government.So those reports are coming from the crew themselves, from the 65 asylum-seekers on board that boat,and they've been backed up by the local Indonesian police chief.That's Hugh de Kretser. He's the director of the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Center.And I asked him how the Australian government has responded to all this.The prime minister refused to confirm or deny that the payments have been madebut suggested they had been by saying things like, we will do whatever it takes to stop the boats; we'll stop them by hook or by crook.So in the context of the intense secrecy that has surrounded Australia's return or interception of boats at sea, of asylum-seeker boats,this statement by the prime minister suggest that the payments were made.Is that illegal? If this turns out to be true, is that against Australian law?Yeah. It's likely to be a breach of not just Australian law but Indonesian law and international law as well.
