FRONTLINE border protection authorities, the Australian Federal Police, airports and Australia's Asian neighbours will be showered with taxpayer cash as part of a $1.3billion package aimed at tackling people-smuggling and securing Australia's borders.
About $654 million in funding will be spent on anti-people-smuggling efforts and surveillance of Australia's northern approaches as well as $685 million on a suite of airport security and counter-terrorism measures.
The funding will be rolled out over six years.
The scale of the measures is in response to a surge in unauthorised boat arrivals, which the Government argues has been caused by political instability in countries such as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Consequently, much of the emphasis will be on extending the surveillance capabilities of authorities policing Australia's northern approaches and bolstering Australia's presence in source and transit countries. It will see almost $63 million spent on aerial surveillance, including funding for two additional aircraft.
About $46.5 million of that had already been allocated with an additional $16.4 million to be spent over two years.
The measures will increase total aerial surveillance time by 2215 hours a year in 2009-10 and 2010-11, providing a "consolidated capacity" of 19,428 hours.
But in a sign the Government hopes the surge in boat arrivals will slow, that capacity will ease to 17,213 in the following two years.
And in an effort to free up existing customs and border protection vessels for coastal surveillance, $22 million will be spent over four years to establish a dedicated capability within Customs to tow and dispose of intercepted vessels.
About $6.3 million will be spent over two years to enable the Southern Ocean patrol vessel to patrol Australia's northern waters for 80 days each year.
The Government will also spend $54.3 million over the next two years extending the lease of the customs vessel, the Triton.
Customs and border protection will spend $15.1 million over four years establishing posts in Sri Lanka and Malaysia, in an effort to strengthen regional co-operation on people-smuggling.
Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said the aim was to boost the capacity of customs and border protection authorities to intercept vessels in Australian waters, "as well as to improve Australia's engagement and co-ordination efforts in the region to stop people-smuggling before the ventures reach our borders".
