Dutchy wrote:Ive always wondered, do some actually make it to mainland Australia? What do they do when they get here?
On very rare occasions. Usually they approach fishermen on the beach or try and hitch-hike on a lonely road, and get picked up very quickly. In recent years though, there are that many defence resources up that way they are typically caught.
A smart people smuggler would actually send people direct from Sri Lanka to southern Australia but that's not ideal for a few reasons - mainly because the length of the journey across the open Indian Ocean means you need a seaworthy, robust boat that is well provisioned. That costs big bucks and narrows the profit margin. Hence, the smarter people smugglers use the Indonesian route because it is straightforward to enter and move around illegally in Indonesia, and furthermore the distance to travel by boat is miniscule and so they can buy very cheap boats that are so unseaworthy that they are destined to be making their last nautical journey, and hardly have to provision them.
Once they are in or close to Australian territorial waters, it is usually a case of the boats volunteering their presence by mayday or similar message, rather than waiting for a plane to fly overhead and spot them. After all, they want to be picked up and taken care of - they are not actually trying to slip in to the country undetected.