At sea

摘要

With his pledge to "stop the boats", Tony Abbott, then the leader of Australia's opposition, made a crusade against asylum-seekers a key part of last year's victorious election campaign. Last month the prime minister claimed victory: Mr Abbott boasted that his conservative Liberal-National government had notched up six months without one "people-smuggling venture" landing on Australian shores. It has done so mainly by using the navy to push boats back to Indonesia, from where most asylum-seekers set out. Days after his declaration, Australia seized 157 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum-seekers from a boat near Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean. The government has since held them on a customs vessel at sea, though it will not say where. The boat people's fate has now moved to Australia's High Court, where refugee advocates say the government is acting illegally. The case could affect the policy of turning back the boats.