Forget the boats: Asylum seeker air arrivals hit post-pandemic high
While a lot of media coverage has been on a single boat arrival in recent days, new figures show 74 asylum seekers are arriving every day by plane.
Border protection is again a key battleground in Australian politics after a boat arrived undetected and the government was forced to release 138 immigration detainees because of a High Court decision.
But the arrival last week of a boat carrying 12 people on a remote part of Western Australia’s coast underscores what is now a much bigger problem in Australia’s border protection regime: plane arrivals.
Last month, there were 2322 arrivals by air who claimed asylum - the third month in a row that monthly asylum seeker arrivals broke the 2000 barrier and the highest since May 2018 when there were 2786.
This equates to 74 arrivals a day.
When there were 68 arrivals a day in 2019 under the Coalition, Labor’s then-home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally said it was a “crisis”.
