Reporter: Michael Usher
Producer: Shaun Devitt
If you're on the run from a place like Afghanistan, Australia must look like paradise.
But you'd have to be utterly desperate to join the wave of refugees headed our way. To put your savings and your life in the hands of the crooks who run the people smuggling racket.
And then, of course, there's the politics and public opinion. This is one issue guaranteed to divide Australians, and have the politicians shouting from their soap boxes.
On the one hand, you have those urging compassion.
On the other, those demanding all refugees be sent back where they came from.
Michael Usher ventures to the frontline for the real story.
Read Michael Usher's blog on this story and have your say
Full transcript:
STORY -
MICHAEL USHER: We're on patrol with the Indonesian police, hunting people-smugglers and their cargo off the coast of West Timor. Even the most unlikely vessel spotted in these waters is checked... ..because right now, a constant human tide is streaming southward. When these officers suspect a smuggler, they only give one warning. But even armed border patrols can only do so much to stop the smugglers' evil trade. There are lots of islands they can hide.
WEST TIMOR POLICE CHIEF: Yeah, yeah. This is about near the 600 islands. yeah, 600 islands.
MICHAEL USHER: 600 islands?
WEST TIMOR POLICE CHIEF: Yeah.
MICHAEL USHER: West Timor's police chief knows he has an impossible task. The multiple coastlines of the Indonesian archipelago make it a smugglers' paradise. And it seems they're always one step ahead.
MICHAEL USHER: Are they clever people? Are they tricky people?
WEST TIMOR POLICE CHIEF: Yes, very tricky.
MICHAEL USHER: At this time of year there seems to be a lot of boats trying to get to Australia? Is it good conditions?
WEST TIMOR POLICE CHIEF: Yeah, because the weather is good now. Maybe next month the weather's not good. The waves are very high and the winds also.
MICHAEL USHER: We are at full speed off the coast of West Timor. Darwin is about 1,000km that way. Out here it is a game of cat and mouse with the smugglers. They know if they can break through this front-line defence that they're halfway to achieving their mission. That is, to get to Australia. They're images we've seen so often - desperate people risking their lives in ramshackle boats. Arriving on our doorstep and begging to stay. It's illegal, and dangerous. But they dare to come because compared to their strife-torn homelands, Australia is paradise. They know very well if they can prove they're genuine refugees, they're in. This desperation has bred an unscrupulous trade in human lives. And here in Indonesia, men like Majid are cashing in. This simple fisherman has joined the ranks of the people-smugglers. You don't have a guilty conscience about smuggling people to Australia?
MAJID: Um, no.
MICHAEL USHER: No guilt?
MAJID: No.
MICHAEL USHER: So this is your boat? He wouldn't show us his face, but Majid bragged of making $100,000 in a single trip, charging up to $15,000 a place on his tiny boat. Alright, this is it? So they're stuck down there with the engines?
MAJID: Yeah.
MICHAEL USHER: And all that noise and all that diesel smell and smoke.
MAJID: Noise and everything, yep.
MICHAEL USHER: That's atrocious. Up to 10 passengers are packed into this tiny space, while, up above, Majid maintains his cover as a fisherman. So that's what you tell them, you tell them you are going fishing? Yeah. It's a 72-hour trip - no radar, no safety equipment, and simply no guarantee his paying passengers will survive the journey. Can we have a look down there?
MAJID: Yes.
MICHAEL USHER: Oh, it's a tight fit. There's barely any room. Just close the hatch. Give me a feeling of what that would be like. I have no idea how they do this. They say four or five men are hidden away down here, packed in, literally, like sardines. There is no room to move at all for me. I can barely twist around. I certainly can't stand up, can't stretch out. There's a few basics down here but I've got no idea how they'd attempt anything like cook or do anything. During the day they have to stay down here - they only come up for an hour or so at night. And just to be sure, during the day they pile all these ropes and fishing gear and other equipment on top of the hatch so in case they get spotted they just look like a fishing vessel. It's just like a rat living in a hole. It's a hell of a way to get to Australia, but Majid never really intends to make it to the mainland. He knows he only has to make it to Ashmore Reef or Christmas Island and he'll be caught. Most likely, he'll be sent back to Indonesia, while our navy or coastguard take his cargo of refugees. It's the way his business works. So you want to be caught?
MAJID: Yeah.
MICHAEL USHER: You don't want to go all the way to the mainland of Australia?
MAJID: No. Difficult, take long time.
MICHAEL USHER: So the mission is get to Ashmore Reef, get in Australian waters.
MAJID: Yep.
MICHAEL USHER: Get caught.
MAJID: If a police catch, that's finished. OK. Good.
MICHAEL USHER: So Majid and his refugee clients have no fear of the Australian authorities. And that's what many are blaming for this latest influx of illegal arrivals. Since the hard-line days of John Howard's Pacific Solution, when boats from Indonesia were sent offshore to places like Nauru - the fear is we've become the soft option for queue-jumpers. What is the word among the smugglers - that Australia is tough on illegal people coming on boat or soft on people arriving by boat?
MAJID: Soft.
MICHAEL USHER: Soft. Why?
MAJID: They give you feed, they give you good meal, they give you good place to stay.
MICHAEL USHER: What you're describing is like going on a holiday. It just sounds outrageous and that's how it's viewed here?
MAJID: Go to live in a jail there. They said, "Go to live in a jail there, "than live in our house here."
MICHAEL USHER: Better to live in a jail in Australia than it is to live in a house in Indonesia?
MAJID: Yeah. And little wonder, when you see where so many of these displaced people end up. This area is called Punchak. we're high up in the mountains of West Java. It's a quiet rural area that trades on its rich soil. Tea plantations are spread through these valleys. Now, we're a long way from the sea and a few hours drive from the capital, Jakarta. But I'm told that in that village down there we'll find the next wave of refugees just waiting for instructions from the people-smugglers about how and where to board the next boat to Australia. This is limbo land for refugees. Tucked away in back alleys and dingy hostels, while they apply for legal migration, a process that can take years. And if Kevin Rudd has his way, this is where they'll stay - warehoused all over Indonesia and funded by the Australian Government to the tune of $50 million. It's a bleak prospect for people like Amir from Iraq who's already been stuck here for five years. So what are you trying to do now? Are you still trying to get to Australia?
AMIR: I want to go come back in Australia because I am see, I am see my family and my Australia same my country, is my country.
MICHAEL USHER: Australia is your country?
AMIR: Is my country, is my country, really my country because I go to Australia, I want to wait me and my family together in Australia.
MICHAEL USHER: Everybody here wants to get out. From their point of view, the people-smugglers are offering a ticket to freedom. And you're prepared to take that risk?
AMIR: Yeah, I will take this risk. Because when I'm living in this condition here every day and every moment, I am dying. I am not alive right now.
MICHAEL USHER: Abdul Hassan Hussani has twice paid smugglers to get to Australia and twice he's been caught. Out of detention now, he's stuck with no passport and no money, but unable to go home to Afghanistan where, he says, the Taliban killed his father and brother. What would happen if you went back to Afghanistan?
ABDUL HASSAN HUSSANI: Ah, again, the Taliban will kill me.
MICHAEL USHER: What do you want to do?
ABDUL HASSAN HUSSANI: Just right now I want to go and I have to join with my family in Australia, with my elder brother.
MICHAEL USHER: Abdul's brother, Ali, came to Australia on an illegal boat nine years ago. He was granted asylum and now lives in Sydney's Western Suburbs. Because he made the journey himself Ali knows just how treacherous it can be and he doesn't want his brother to take the same risk.
ALI ON PHONE: Hello. ABDUL HASSAN HUSSANI ON PHONE: Hello, how are you? I have to come illegal because the legal way that I have to is stay for Indonesia, it takes lot of time, maybe more than three years, four years, five years, the same, like before.
ALI ON PHONE: Can't tell you if you come by boat. That's very hard, maybe not safe. This I tell you 100% - it's not safe!
MICHAEL USHER: Despite his brother's pleas, Abdul feels it's his best choice. Is it easy to get to Australia?
ABDUL HASSAN HUSSANI: Easy by boat? Yeah, by boat is easy. Yeah. Just pay money for a smuggler, within one week you will be arrive in Australia.
MICHAEL USHER: There's one big problem with stopping this trade - incredibly, Indonesia has no law against people-smuggling. Ali Cobra and his crew were notorious smugglers. But they're only in jail because a 9-year-old boy they had on board died when the boat sank. Do you feel bad about what happened?
ALI COBRA: (TRANSLATION) Yes, I feel guilty, because although you could say I was not directly involved but because they used my boat, I feel so guilty.
MICHAEL USHER: Ali Cobra and his men pocketed $5,000 for organising the doomed boat, but claim they were simply trying to help people in need. He organised the boat, he organised the car, and you're the boss, and you say you're not people-smugglers.
ALI COBRA: (TRANSLATION) I helped them because I needed the money - so I sold the boat to them. It's different to helping them come from their own country or bringing them from Jakarta to here. This is how it went. I had a boat for sale so they bought it.
MICHAEL USHER: Would you do this again?
ALI COBRA: No.
MICHAEL USHER: So you've learnt your lesson?
ALI COBRA: Yes.
MICHAEL USHER: The smile suggests otherwise. Ali Cobra will be out of jail in two years time and he knows that the people- smuggling business is booming. A single trip can earn them $500,000 right now. Human-traffickers like Majid can't fill their boats fast enough. You know that costs Australians a lot of money. It cost taxpayers a lot of money to look after you all.
MAJID: As you know, people from villages who like us very low key, we don't know much about that except we get good life, finish.
MICHAEL USHER: So you get a good life?
MAJID: Yeah.
