Prime Minister Tony Abbott claims there is a big between turning boats around in Australian waters and the Australian Navy towing them back to Indonesia.

On 2 March 2011 the Parliament established the Joint Select Committee on the Christmas Island Tragedy to inquire into the incident on 15 December 2010 in which a suspected irregular entry vessel (SIEV) foundered on rocks at Rocky Point on Christmas Island (CI).

In the pre-election environment of 2001, the Australian government introduced legislative changes allowing some of Australia's territory to be excised from the migration zone in order to discourage non-citizens from arriving unlawfully in Australia by boat. People attempting to do so since then have been intercepted at sea, where possible, and either returned to Indonesia...