Secure seas: Australia ups its maritime patrol efforts

摘要

Australia's vast coastline and territorial waters are an economic boon but pose an operational challenge to the country's maritime patrol assets, fan Bostock surveys the country's attempts to seal up its maritime borders. When a hugely overcrowded fishing boat put out a distress call in August 2001, it unwittingly set in motion a chain of events that would thrust one of the responding rescue vessels — the Norway-flagged container ship MV Tampa — and Australia's seaward approaches into the international spotlight.