Text messages to voters on a boat of asylum seekers intercepted on election day were sent without the approval of outgoing Home Secretary Karen Andrews. But Ms Andrews said text messages sent by the Liberal Party on Saturday were not approved by her: “I was unaware of the text messages. I didn’t know they were even being watched,” she said on Wednesday. ABC.
“A lot of things were happening on election day. What the party decided to do is a matter of party … it wasn’t something I endorsed.”
The Liberal Party text read: “Australian Border Force has intercepted an illegal ship trying to reach Australia. Keep our borders safe by voting Liberal today. It came after the border force issued a statement to the media. On election day he claimed that a ship had “a ship intercepted in a probable attempt to enter Australia illegally from Sri Lanka”, said the commander of the Sovereign Border Operation ‘Joint Agency, Rear Admiral Justin Jones.” Australian government policy has not changed. We will intercept any ship seeking to arrive in Australia illegally and return safely those on board to their point of departure or country of origin. “
“It was really an important thing to do, because it was election day and transparency was needed,” he said.
READ MORE
But Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the former government had breached the bipartisan approach to border protection in a last-ditch effort to influence voters. “We have expressed our displeasure with the publication and politicization of this ship … on election day,” he said. the ABC.
“We shouldn’t treat border security that way.”
Labor calls for investigation into the interception of boat interceptions
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles revealed on Tuesday that he had asked the Home Secretary to inform the government of the circumstances of the information that was made public on election day, calling it “non-routine”. “What is really clear is that the former Liberal government was much more interested in its own political interests than in the national interest,” he told Sky News. “We wanted to create a division where there was none. Everyone knew that there was bipartisanship in relation to maintaining strong borders and that is a national asset.
“But what this government did was try to undermine that with its own political purposes.”
READ MORE
Marles promised that the Albanian government would not use national security issues for “political gain” and would act in the national interest. The Labor government also revealed on Tuesday that it had turned over its first asylum seeker ship. Border security had been a repeated point of tension during the election campaign, with the Coalition claiming that it was better qualified to manage this policy because of its track record of returning ships during its time in government.
But Labor has insisted it is committed to maintaining the same approach to returning the ship, as evidenced by its early takeover.