Australia has committed 'piracy on the high seas': Malcolm Fraser

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Malcolm Fraser

Former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has characterised Australia’s interdiction and detention of  more than 150 Sri Lankan asylum seekers at sea as ‘‘piracy on the high seas’’.

He said the apprehension of the vessel on which they were travelling in international waters and their transfer to an Australian customs vessel was ‘‘in breach of international law’’, and he was unsure how else to describe it, other than as an act of piracy.

Speaking at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, he also cited wire reports that a Sri Lankan police chief had said  another 41 passengers recently picked up by Australia and returned to Sri Lanka would be prosecuted for leaving the country illegally.

‘‘The other thing [the police chief] said was that they would all be subject to enhanced imprisonment,’’ Mr Fraser said. ‘‘What is enhanced imprisonment? Is that a new name for torture? Sounded very like it.’’


On Monday, a Sri Lankan police spokesman was quoted by Reuters as saying that those found guilty of leaving the country illegally would be subject to ‘‘ two years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine’’.

The Abbott government has not disclosed the current whereabouts of the group of 153 Sri Lankans picked up at sea, and is awaiting the results of a High Court challenge as to their fate.

Elsewhere in his address, Mr Fraser criticised the speech made  in Canberra on Tuesday by visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, with its implicit warnings to China and subtext of a strengthening Australian-Japanese defence relationship.

Mr Fraser said Mr Abe was the ‘‘second head of state, head of government, who’s  made a speech that should only have been made on his own soil. The first was President Obama, when he made a speech  that should only have been made from American soil.’’

Mr Fraser was referring to Mr Obama’s November 2011 speech in Australia emphasising a United States ‘‘pivot’’ towards  greater involvement in the Asia-Pacific region, and the subsequent rotation of US troops through Darwin.

Mr Fraser said ‘‘ there is a view in America that Australia is the best of allies because ... we do what America  wants when America wants it, we won’t even ask any questions ..And that’s pretty accurate. And Obama’s speech in the parliament about the pivot was misguided and wrong.’’

Mr Fraser said he did not believe that recent Chinese assertiveness was a threat to Australia, adding  ‘‘China has never, I think, been ....through its very ancient history an imperial power in the way those European states, Japan and America have been...’’

Mr Fraser was promoting his recent book Dangerous Allies. (SMH)