Brett Sonter, Commander of the Joint Agency Task Force Operation Sovereign Borders has had a thinly-veiled slap at the opposition as the the political debate is reactivated over border security.
Australia’s electronic surveillance laws are up for reform – but Border Force’s powers to search phones without a warrant have been left out of the review.
Exclusion has been central to utopian ideas of Australia since before Federation. It still lingers. To progress in this climate-challenged century, Australia’s foundational wrongs must be righted.
Coronavirus means Australians are not allowed to travel overseas. Since March, only about third of the special requests to leave the country have been granted.
Australia has been tightening the border between PNG and the Torres Strait Islands in recent years, exacerbating poverty and the spread of tuberculosis in villages that depend on cross-border trade.
COVID-19 has challenged the systems we have in place for controlling our borders and shown the need to be able to adapt quickly and reimpose physical barriers and other controls when necessary.
Searching a smartphone is different from searching luggage. Our smartphones carry our innermost thoughts, intimate pictures, sensitive workplace documents and private messages.
Prized species such as sea cucumbers are increasingly being poached from Australian waters. But if foreign aid can give fishing crews alternative livelihoods, the problem could ease.
Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society & School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University