CANBERRA, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- More than 3,000 asylum seekers have been prevented from coming to Australia by boat since 2013, it has been revealed.
Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB), which was announced in September 2013, has stopped 2,525 people from boarding boats to Australia by disrupting 78 people-smuggling operations and intercepting 33 boats carrying a further 800 asylum seekers in transit.
Of the 800 who were intercepted, some had their boats turned back while others were sent to detention facilities on Manus Island, Christmas Island or Nauru where they have been held indefinitely.
Despite the success of the operation, which the government says has stopped boats from coming to Australia, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on Tuesday told Parliament that the "threat of people-smuggling has certainly not gone away."
Dutton's warning came as the governing Liberal-National Party Coalition (LNP) and the opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) negotiated a deal that would see 150 refugees still in Nauru resettled by New Zealand.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison who oversaw the implementation of OSB during his time as the minister for immigration and border protection has said he will only accept New Zealand's resettlement offer if a lifetime ban was placed on all resettled refugees ever entering Australia.
