Administrator Stanhope soon to be returned to us

Howard created the refugee problem by invading Iraq and Afghanistan

Little Johnnie the War Criminal

Hyperbole much?

Perhaps I couldn’t help poking the Rabid Right on here with a sharp stick, but it’s an arguable case. Victors are never tried, that doesn’t mean they”re not guilty.

IP

CraigT said :

Firstly, the Migration Act is the law governing how people enter this country, and it defines people who come here without valid visas as people who have broken that law. They entered the country illegally. They are here illegally.
I know Denial of this basic fact is one of the basic tenets of the illegal immigration lobby, but do try to take this onboard.

Correct the migration ACT is the law that covers entry of people into Australia. Though I suggest you go read the bit about asylum seekers, as that does NOT make you an illegal. If you get assessed and found not to be a genuine asylum seeker then yes you are an illegal.

Secondly might I point out that Howard made islands like Christmas Island outside the Australian migration zone (something I don’t believe Labor changed). This of course means that the asylum seekers having made it to these islands have not technically made it to Australia, and hence have made no attempt to enter Australia, so again are not illegals.

So who is denying basic facts? Specifically being an asylum seeker does not make you an illegal, but denial of this basic fact is one of the basic tenets of the xenophobic boat people lobby, but do try to take this onboard.

Robertson said :

… it is complete nonsense.

It’s supposed to be nonsense. It’s making a point about illusory correlations. It resembles other comments in this thread that make similar nonsense statements and come to similar nonsense conclusions.

Robertson said :

Rocks aren’t designed to keep tigers away. You are not in a position where you expect6 tigers to come your way.

Thatcher famously claimed that nuclear weapons prevented war. Some people believe that magic rocks can keep tigers away. Aren’t both those statements the same kind of nonsense?

IrishPete said :

Anyway why are you crediting TPVs and not the Pacific (Final) Solution, and Mandatory Detention, and a whole host of Howard’s incredibly cruel responses to asylum seekers?

Exactly. More than one change occurred in 2001.

IrishPete said :

Would it undermine your argument to say that the reduction in arrivals was a result of multiple changes in policy, because that might open the door to admitting that there might be events outside of Australia that contributed?

One of my favourite quotes is by Mencken; “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong”. The “TPVs stopped the boats!” meme reeks of over-simplification.

Robertson said :

I think you should believe the facts, not the selective misuse of statistics and projecting an incredibly small handful of interviews as somehow representative of all the thousands of others by a person trying to push an agenda and supporting her pet theory which is clearly contradicted by the facts.

Hoffman failed to analyse post-2001 figures, and failed to analyse post-2007 figures. Why do you think she avoided talking about those facts?

She also seems inordinately obsessed with the 353 people who drowned in Indonesian waters after their indonesian boat sank (SIEV X), but has nothing to say about the 4,000+ people who drowned during the ALP’s misrule on this issue. Why do you think that is?

When the facts don’t suit, attack the messenger. Good work Robbo. Keep digging.

Also feel free to look into the difference between qualitative research and quantitative research, and how they complement each other.

IP

I think you should believe the facts, not the selective misuse of statistics and projecting an incredibly small handful of interviews as somehow representative of all the thousands of others by a person trying to push an agenda and supporting her pet theory which is clearly contradicted by the facts.

Hoffman failed to analyse post-2001 figures, and failed to analyse post-2007 figures. Why do you think she avoided talking about those facts?

She also seems inordinately obsessed with the 353 people who drowned in Indonesian waters after their indonesian boat sank (SIEV X), but has nothing to say about the 4,000+ people who drowned during the ALP’s misrule on this issue. Why do you think that is?

Robertson said :

Must be very hard work convincing yourself TPVs don’t affect people’s choice to employ people smugglers.

Sue Hoffman submitted her doctoral thesis concerning the journeys of Iraqi asylum seekers to Australia which examines, amongst other things, their experiences in countries of first asylum and transit countries, and dealing with people-smugglers.

Here is how she summarises her research with respect to the efficacy of TPVs:

“In summary, the numbers and personal accounts support the argument that TPVs were a factor in the growth of asylum seeker numbers and were the main reason that so many women and children got on smugglers’ boats.

“As for evidence that TPVs were a deterrent – there isn’t any. There is only speculation by those who haven’t bothered fact checking or doing a bit of research. If anyone tells you that TPVs were a factor in stopping boats in 2001, rest assured they have no idea what they are talking about, or they are simply lying.”

[Source: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2757748.html%5D

I wonder who I’m going to believe… ?

Robertson said :

Oops, you haven’t been paying attention.

TPVs were not implemented as the definitive visa for illegal boat arrivals until the law change in September 2001. It is discussed up-thread.

Change to TPVs in late 2001. Illegal arrivals by boat stopped dead.

It is not reasonable to assume some other unpredicted and still unidentified mechanism caused the sudden cessation of illegal boat arrivals when there is the very simple explanation available that TPVs worked.

Are you enjoying that cake that you are both eating and saving for later?

You know, when I said “So now I’m going to make a totally unsupportable presumption like yours” I wasn’t encouraging you to make more of your own. But feel free. You just look foolish. Your world is black and white, simple. The rocks in front of your house keep the tigers away. If that’s what you want to believe, feel free, just don’t expect anyone else to believe it.

Howard created the refugee problem by invading Iraq and Afghanistan, so I don’t see why he should be given any credit for solving it (not that I am accepting he did solve it, because no public policy issue is so simple as to be solved so easily).

Anyway why are you crediting TPVs and not the Pacific (Final) Solution, and Mandatory Detention, and a whole host of Howard’s incredibly cruel responses to asylum seekers? Would it undermine your argument to say that the reduction in arrivals was a result of multiple changes in policy, because that might open the door to admitting that there might be events outside of Australia that contributed?

I think I am going to leave this debate, as you are clearly still in mourning for Little Johnnie the War Criminal, and one cannot reason with someone like that.

IP

IrishPete said :

I have asked you to present evidence, and you have not. So here it is for you:

arrivals by boat, calendar years:
1999 3721
2000 2939
2001 5516

Let’s just add in the remaining years from 2002 when TPVs became effective until TPVs were scrapped in 2008:

2002–>2008: total boat arrivals, 449 people, less than 100 per year.

Now, let’s add in the years from the point TPVs were scrapped and the issuing of permanent visas was resumed:

2009: 1033
2010: 5609
2011: 4940
2012: 7983
2013: 25173

Must be very hard work convincing yourself TPVs don’t affect people’s choice to employ people smugglers.

IrishPete said :

Robertson said :

IrishPete said :

Sorry, but you are now going to have to provide evidence that 11000 TPVs were issued in just two years, because that doesn’t seem particularly credible. In the meantime, I am going to reject your statement as being wishful thinking.

IP

Do the maths.
How many people arrived between 1999 and 2001? About 11,000
How many people arrived by boat between 2002 and 2006? About 500.

How could they have issued 11,000 TPVs to 500 people?

Why would you even be trying to twist yourself in knots attempting to believe that?

I have asked you to present evidence, and you have not. So here it is for you:

arrivals by boat, calendar years:
1999 3721
2000 2939
2001 5516

You yourself pointed out that TPVs were first introduced in October 1999, so you don’t get to count all the 1999 arrivals as having been given TPVs. I refer you back to your use of the words “few” and “tiny proportion”. By any measure those are hyperbole.

So now I’m going to make a totally unsupportable presumption like yours. Arrivals of asylum seeker by boat increased after the introduction of TPVs in October 1999.. After a small reduction in 2000 they nearly doubled in 2001. Then in 2001 something happened that reduced the number of boat arrivals to almost zero. Now that could be tweaking of TPV conditions, or it could be something else.

So are you going to have your cake and eat it too? TPVs reduced boat arrivals in 2001 but they didn’t increase them in 1999 to 2001? That’s a rhetorical question – I know what your answer is going to be. St John could do no wrong, not even when he broke international law and ordered piracy on the Tampa (he should have been prosecuted for that, as should the military who followed those illegal orders).

IP

Oops, you haven’t been paying attention.

TPVs were not implemented as the definitive visa for illegal boat arrivals until the law change in September 2001. It is discussed up-thread.

Change to TPVs in late 2001. Illegal arrivals by boat stopped dead.

It is not reasonable to assume some other unpredicted and still unidentified mechanism caused the sudden cessation of illegal boat arrivals when there is the very simple explanation available that TPVs worked.

Robertson said :

IrishPete said :

Sorry, but you are now going to have to provide evidence that 11000 TPVs were issued in just two years, because that doesn’t seem particularly credible. In the meantime, I am going to reject your statement as being wishful thinking.

IP

Do the maths.
How many people arrived between 1999 and 2001? About 11,000
How many people arrived by boat between 2002 and 2006? About 500.

How could they have issued 11,000 TPVs to 500 people?

Why would you even be trying to twist yourself in knots attempting to believe that?

I have asked you to present evidence, and you have not. So here it is for you:

arrivals by boat, calendar years:
1999 3721
2000 2939
2001 5516

You yourself pointed out that TPVs were first introduced in October 1999, so you don’t get to count all the 1999 arrivals as having been given TPVs. I refer you back to your use of the words “few” and “tiny proportion”. By any measure those are hyperbole.

So now I’m going to make a totally unsupportable presumption like yours. Arrivals of asylum seeker by boat increased after the introduction of TPVs in October 1999.. After a small reduction in 2000 they nearly doubled in 2001. Then in 2001 something happened that reduced the number of boat arrivals to almost zero. Now that could be tweaking of TPV conditions, or it could be something else.

So are you going to have your cake and eat it too? TPVs reduced boat arrivals in 2001 but they didn’t increase them in 1999 to 2001? That’s a rhetorical question – I know what your answer is going to be. St John could do no wrong, not even when he broke international law and ordered piracy on the Tampa (he should have been prosecuted for that, as should the military who followed those illegal orders).

IP

IrishPete said :

nhand42 said :

CraigT said :

TPVs were not implemented until late 2001 –
After September 2001, boat arrivals plummeted, and these figures speak for themselves:

I have a rock that keeps tigers away. The fact that I have yet to be mauled by a tiger proves that the rock works.

CraigT said :

And the instant TPVs were foolishly scrapped by the ALP, illegal arrivals by boat started flooding in.

I forgot to take my rock into the tiger’s cage and I was subsequently mauled by a tiger. Further proof that the rock works.

I’m not taking a pro or con position on TPV. I do think one factor by itself is pretty meaningless. What other factors changed around that time?

This is a variation on the Elephant Repellent Powder joke.

IP

A joke it may be, as an analogy it is complete nonsense.

Rocks aren’t designed to keep tigers away. You are not in a position where you expect6 tigers to come your way.

Australia is in a position to receive many illegal entrants. TPVs were designed as part of the policy to address that issue.
And the issue was addressed.
Then TPVs were scrapped.
Then, immediately, the issue blew up again.

It takes an extraordinary level of cognitive dissonance to deny the obvious link between TPVs and their effect.

IrishPete said :

Sorry, but you are now going to have to provide evidence that 11000 TPVs were issued in just two years, because that doesn’t seem particularly credible. In the meantime, I am going to reject your statement as being wishful thinking.

IP

Do the maths.
How many people arrived between 1999 and 2001? About 11,000
How many people arrived by boat between 2002 and 2006? About 500.

How could they have issued 11,000 TPVs to 500 people?

Why would you even be trying to twist yourself in knots attempting to believe that?

Robertson said :

JC said :

That to me says that no policy is ‘working’, nor can work, nor really should it work. These people are desperate and will do anything.

*Your* policy of encouraging the boats has killed over 4,000 people. Bravo.

Here is a picture of some refugees in a South Sudanese refugee camp:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00359/117302068_Yida_359484c.jpg
Australia resettles people from camps such as this.
Australia is pretty much the most generous country in the world when it comes to resettling these refugees.

However, there is a limit to how many people the Australian taxpayer can extend their charity to.
And for every one of *these* kinds of people who turn up in Australia illegally:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k4D5uSOh7XE/Ue47cMEbODI/AAAAAAAAEfY/OaDxQpiI9mc/s1600/6a0177444b0c2e970d0192ac1ffe34970d-800wi.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sPFXwfDTlO0/Ue47TAicPgI/AAAAAAAAEeY/EWLIprDm2FI/s1600/6a0177444b0c2e970d01901e5e8596970b-800wi.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dV25AG3YQaw/Ue47Tqr2AeI/AAAAAAAAEec/YoNucl5cd-Y/s640/6a0177444b0c2e970d01901e60b2e4970b-800wi.jpg
(Notice the recent nose job on that last one?)
That means we take one less of the genuinely desperate and deserving refugees stuck in camps in South Sudan – people who really are refugees and can’t afford to fly to Indonesia and can’t afford nose jobs and designer clothes and certainly can’t afford $10,000 a pop for a people smuggler to help them manipulate Australia’s dysfunctional laws on asylum.

Hi Robertson. No rejoinder to comment #43 then? It’s just “wipe the slate clean” and pretend that conversation didn’t happen?

Lets deal with the accusation that:

“for every one of *these* kinds of people who turn up in Australia illegally[sic] … That means we take one less of the genuinely desperate and deserving refugees stuck in camps in South Sudan… “

Question: Why is it that an irregular arrival asylum seeker, e.g. coming by boat, *must* displace an individual from our humanitarian intake quota?

Answer: Because that’s the policy of the Labor/Liberal governments. It’s not the asylum seeker stopping Australia from taking the refugee from the Sudan, its the rules written by our government. So where does the blame lie?

Also can you please stop puffing yourself up with over inflated pride over “Australia is pretty much the most generous country in the world when it comes to resettling these refugees”.

On a per capita basis we do have a good record here. I haven’t checked the figures but on a GDP basis, maybe not so good. But that is all beside the point, what your statement should really be is:

Of all the countries that have the “luxury” to set a quota, Australia has one of the highest.

When you look at the refugee problems that other countries around the world face, Australia’s is small.

nhand42 said :

CraigT said :

TPVs were not implemented until late 2001 –
After September 2001, boat arrivals plummeted, and these figures speak for themselves:

I have a rock that keeps tigers away. The fact that I have yet to be mauled by a tiger proves that the rock works.

CraigT said :

And the instant TPVs were foolishly scrapped by the ALP, illegal arrivals by boat started flooding in.

I forgot to take my rock into the tiger’s cage and I was subsequently mauled by a tiger. Further proof that the rock works.

I’m not taking a pro or con position on TPV. I do think one factor by itself is pretty meaningless. What other factors changed around that time?

This is a variation on the Elephant Repellent Powder joke.

IP

Bob Carr may have said that there are a lot of economic migrants amongst asylum seekers, but he says a lot of things, including that he would keep his Senate seat. But now Labor members are arguing over who should replace him.

He would not produce any evidence to support his claim about asylum seekers.

No-one is going to argue against Australia taking its asylum seekers (refugees) from their source rather than from boats. But neither Labor nor the Coalition have actually proposed any meaningful policy to do so. Only the Greens have such a policy and look how well we did in the election. Australia is spending all its money on gulag-like detention centres, and meeting boats with the Navy and Customs, so-called “interception”.

If we stopped meeting the boats and escorting them safely to port, perhaps they would stop coming? People smugglers are able to tell their clients “as soon as you get out to sea, the Australian Navy will rescue you” – the boats don’t even have to have enough fuel to get to Christmas Island. Crew sometimes abandon them and return to Indonesia, avoiding imprisonment.

I always laugh when I hear of a boat being “intercepted” when the authorities actually mean it has been “met”.

IP

CraigT said :

The vast majority of those TPVs were issued prior to September 2001, when the TPV was changed to become an effective deterrent to economic migrants posing as refugees.

To assert that a policy designed to achieve a certain outcome was not responsible when that outcome was indeed achieved is Denial, pure and simple.

Sorry, but you are now going to have to provide evidence that 11000 TPVs were issued in just two years, because that doesn’t seem particularly credible. In the meantime, I am going to reject your statement as being wishful thinking.

IP

JC said :

That to me says that no policy is ‘working’, nor can work, nor really should it work. These people are desperate and will do anything.

*Your* policy of encouraging the boats has killed over 4,000 people. Bravo.

Here is a picture of some refugees in a South Sudanese refugee camp:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00359/117302068_Yida_359484c.jpg
Australia resettles people from camps such as this.
Australia is pretty much the most generous country in the world when it comes to resettling these refugees.

However, there is a limit to how many people the Australian taxpayer can extend their charity to.
And for every one of *these* kinds of people who turn up in Australia illegally:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k4D5uSOh7XE/Ue47cMEbODI/AAAAAAAAEfY/OaDxQpiI9mc/s1600/6a0177444b0c2e970d0192ac1ffe34970d-800wi.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sPFXwfDTlO0/Ue47TAicPgI/AAAAAAAAEeY/EWLIprDm2FI/s1600/6a0177444b0c2e970d01901e5e8596970b-800wi.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dV25AG3YQaw/Ue47Tqr2AeI/AAAAAAAAEec/YoNucl5cd-Y/s640/6a0177444b0c2e970d01901e60b2e4970b-800wi.jpg
(Notice the recent nose job on that last one?)
That means we take one less of the genuinely desperate and deserving refugees stuck in camps in South Sudan – people who really are refugees and can’t afford to fly to Indonesia and can’t afford nose jobs and designer clothes and certainly can’t afford $10,000 a pop for a people smuggler to help them manipulate Australia’s dysfunctional laws on asylum.

JC said :

the real question is rather than stopping it, what are we, a wealthy nation doing to help the world.

We do nothing to help the world by taking in these asylum seekers, who are as even Bob Carr has admitted mostly economic migrants. We actually doing the opposite to the world and ourselves.

There are over 3 billion people in the world who are living well below what we could consider poverty. All of these people could be seen as “desperate”. Even the small amount we and other western countries take are more than replaced by the local birth rates.

And when those few who are industrious enough or have the means leave these countries for greener pastures, while those individuals may benefit, it actually hurts the country to lose these people because it’s these people who would be best able to improve the standards of living at home.

To some degree this is also true for skilled migration. Who really needs Indian doctors more, for example, us or India?

JC said :

Again asylum seekers are not illegals, they are you got it asylum seekers.

As for stats, the number as asylum seekers seeking asylum in AUSTRALIA has consistently followed the number of asylum seekers WORLDWIDE.

There was a peak WORLDWIDE in 2000, which dropped off in 2001 through to 2007. Since then the numbers have INCREASED WORLDWIDE with Australia in proportion.

That to me says that no policy is ‘working’, nor can work, nor really should it work. These people are desperate and will do anything. The fact it was low in the Howard years was just following worldwide trends rather than any particular policy success.

Have a look at the chart in the link below.

http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=244

Firstly, the Migration Act is the law governing how people enter this country, and it defines people who come here without valid visas as people who have broken that law. They entered the country illegally. They are here illegally.
I know Denial of this basic fact is one of the basic tenets of the illegal immigration lobby, but do try to take this onboard.

Secondly, looking at that chart, I see that Australia’s numbers of asylum seekers across time diverges significantly from the rest of the world’s.

Co-incidentally though, the drop and then subsequent increase in illegal entrants matches very closely with the introduction of Howard’s TPVs and their removal by the ALP a few years later.

I *note* that your chart shows *all* asylum seekers, not just those illegally arriving by boat.
Presumably your source chose the graph he did because it suits his narrative.
Here is the one he could have used:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/4694210/data/boat-arrivals-by-year-graph-data.jpg
Doesn’t quite suit your belief so weel, does it?

IrishPete said :

CraigT said :

IrishPete said :

CraigT said :

I don’t think this is correct.. The APH report I linked to said there were 11,000 TPVs issued in 8 years, that’s a significant number, not “a few” or “a tiny proportion of the numbers of visas previously issued”. Yes, there were not many boat arrivals, but they were obviously still being issued to people arriving by other means

And I repeat – correlation does not prove causation. Never can, never will.

There are many potential reasons why the boats stopped – maybe the Indonesian authorities did their job for a while, or maybe fishing was good in those years.

IP

The vast majority of those TPVs were issued prior to September 2001, when the TPV was changed to become an effective deterrent to economic migrants posing as refugees.

To assert that a policy designed to achieve a certain outcome was not responsible when that outcome was indeed achieved is Denial, pure and simple.

It could be a bit of a myth that the Christmas Island administrator actually lives on Christmas Island. Stanhope’s predecessor was Canberra-based …

howeph said :

Is this still your position?

Before answering that question did you watch the linked video Lest We Forget – Howard’s Hellholes?

Imagine yourself as one of those guards (let alone an inmate). Having to deal with such events on a regular basis for months or years. Because that, and worse, is what you will be asking other Australians to do as you muster the “long term resolve to fix the problem permanently”.

I put it to you that this is not the Australia we want to be.

We have historically been at the forefront, supporting human rights, to prevent these things from happening. You are advocating that Australia should do the things that we condemn in others.

What happened in that video is horrible but I would ask what happens in overseas refugee camps? Similar or worse on a daily basis. What happens to those who don’t have the means to escape the worst of the persecution?

Once it is made clear, no ifs or buts, that boat arrivals will never receive resettlement in Australia, then the events of that video won’t be repeated in the long term because there won’t be anyone in detention in the first place.

It all comes back to the premise (that I would consider hard to argue against) that we can’t help everyone. Hence we need to prioritise funding and resources.

For me that means helping the people most at risk of being killed and not those who’ve already passed through multiple countries and paid criminals to get on a boat journey from which many will die.

It’s an issue that I know most will never agree on and there will never be a consensus view on the most effective policy.

CraigT said :

IrishPete said :

CraigT said :

Result?
1 single, solitary Asylum claim from an illegal entrant by boat during the course of the entire calendar year 2002.

The APH research section doesn’t seem so sure of the deterrent effects of TPVs http://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/bn/2012-2013/boatarrivals#_Toc347230716

Given the percentage of TPV holders who eventually got permanency, I can’t see how that could have worked as a deterrent,
…..

Your argument doesn’t follow.

The number of TPVs *issued* was a tiny proportion of the numbers of visas previously issued to illegal entrants – illegal entrants were self-selecting with almost all declining to come with only a TPV on offer. The remaining few who came were presumably people with valid reasons to come here seeking asylum.

I don’t think this is correct.. The APH report I linked to said there were 11,000 TPVs issued in 8 years, that’s a significant number, not “a few” or “a tiny proportion of the numbers of visas previously issued”. Yes, there were not many boat arrivals, but they were obviously still being issued to people arriving by other means

And I repeat – correlation does not prove causation. Never can, never will.

There are many potential reasons why the boats stopped – maybe the Indonesian authorities did their job for a while, or maybe fishing was good in those years.

IP

CraigT said :

The pro-illegal immigration crowd will contnue to assert that TPVs did not work. The fact they hate TPVs so much tells you what they really think though.

TPVs were not implemented until late 2001 – prior to that, the TPV had simply been inserted as a step in the existing process.
After September 2001, boat arrivals plummeted, and these figures speak for themselves:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/4694210/data/boat-arrivals-by-year-graph-data.jpg
And the instant TPVs were foolishly scrapped by the ALP, illegal arrivals by boat started flooding in.

You can try denial all you want, but the facts are inescapable – once TPVs were the best an illegal entrant could look for, they simply stopped coming, and they didn’t start coming again until TPVs were no longer in place.

Again asylum seekers are not illegals, they are you got it asylum seekers.

As for stats, the number as asylum seekers seeking asylum in AUSTRALIA has consistently followed the number of asylum seekers WORLDWIDE.

There was a peak WORLDWIDE in 2000, which dropped off in 2001 through to 2007. Since then the numbers have INCREASED WORLDWIDE with Australia in proportion.

That to me says that no policy is ‘working’, nor can work, nor really should it work. These people are desperate and will do anything. The fact it was low in the Howard years was just following worldwide trends rather than any particular policy success.

Have a look at the chart in the link below.

http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=244

CraigT said :

TPVs were not implemented until late 2001 –
After September 2001, boat arrivals plummeted, and these figures speak for themselves:

I have a rock that keeps tigers away. The fact that I have yet to be mauled by a tiger proves that the rock works.

CraigT said :

And the instant TPVs were foolishly scrapped by the ALP, illegal arrivals by boat started flooding in.

I forgot to take my rock into the tiger’s cage and I was subsequently mauled by a tiger. Further proof that the rock works.

I’m not taking a pro or con position on TPV. I do think one factor by itself is pretty meaningless. What other factors changed around that time?

chewy14 said :

Howeph,
This discussion has been has before but I would define a successful policy as one that :
helps the greatest number of refugees,
chosen from the worldwide pool of refugees who are at the greatest risk of persecution,
for a cost which is not excessively onerous on the Australian taxpayer.

Your solution virtually ensures that we will receive ever increasing number of refugees from those at a lower risk who can afford to pay to get to Indonesia. It fails all but possibly the first point above. We simply cannot help everyone so we need to prioritise our resources to where they can do the most good. Stopping boat arrivals is an integral part of that.

Hi Chewy14. Yes you and I have started this conversation before [Starts around #64 at http://the-riotact.com/photos-of-asylum-seeker-policy-protest-in-woden/110840/comment-page-3#comments but unfortunately that thread was hijacked and went severly off the rails.

Before the trainwreck you were saying (Comment #79 of that thread):

chewy14 said :

My personal opinion is that we should remove ourselves as signatories to the convention. It is outdated… We should definitely at a minimum be lobbying for changes to be made to reflect the modern world and modern refugee movements.

If we refused to accept any boat arrivals ever, then we could massively increase our refugee intake from overseas camps across the world helping more people at a lower cost. Better end result.

You seem to be of the opinion that all refugees are equal yet your policy preferentially assists those who can get to Indonesia…

…

The PNG policy has a chance of working unless they give into emotional pressure as you’ve alluded to. Short term pain will be felt by those who try to bypass the system … My point is that deterrence only works if you have the guts to follow through. If you provide empty threats then of course it will fail and the people smugglers are counting on us not having the long term resolve to fix the problem permanently.

I hope the above makes my opinion clearer, I would rather a few hundred/possibly thousand suffer in the short term so we can help many, many multiples of that number in the long term.

Is this still your position?

Before answering that question did you watch the linked video Lest We Forget – Howard’s Hellholes?

Imagine yourself as one of those guards (let alone an inmate). Having to deal with such events on a regular basis for months or years. Because that, and worse, is what you will be asking other Australians to do as you muster the “long term resolve to fix the problem permanently”.

I put it to you that this is not the Australia we want to be.

We have historically been at the forefront, supporting human rights, to prevent these things from happening. You are advocating that Australia should do the things that we condemn in others.

IrishPete said :

CraigT said :

Result?
1 single, solitary Asylum claim from an illegal entrant by boat during the course of the entire calendar year 2002.

The APH research section doesn’t seem so sure of the deterrent effects of TPVs http://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/bn/2012-2013/boatarrivals#_Toc347230716

Given the percentage of TPV holders who eventually got permanency, I can’t see how that could have worked as a deterrent,
…..

Your argument doesn’t follow.

The number of TPVs *issued* was a tiny proportion of the numbers of visas previously issued to illegal entrants – illegal entrants were self-selecting with almost all declining to come with only a TPV on offer. The remaining few who came were presumably people with valid reasons to come here seeking asylum.

The pro-illegal immigration crowd will contnue to assert that TPVs did not work. The fact they hate TPVs so much tells you what they really think though.

TPVs were not implemented until late 2001 – prior to that, the TPV had simply been inserted as a step in the existing process.
After September 2001, boat arrivals plummeted, and these figures speak for themselves:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/4694210/data/boat-arrivals-by-year-graph-data.jpg
And the instant TPVs were foolishly scrapped by the ALP, illegal arrivals by boat started flooding in.

You can try denial all you want, but the facts are inescapable – once TPVs were the best an illegal entrant could look for, they simply stopped coming, and they didn’t start coming again until TPVs were no longer in place.

Roundhead89 said :

JC said :

CraigT said :

Flogging a dead horse.

Tony Abbott wins on this issue – nothing you can do about it.

Sadly you are right, it wouldn’t matter people would still see the coalition as the ones to stop it, when of course the real question is rather than stopping it, what are we, a wealthy nation doing to help the world. I mean to say Jordon now has the best part of 1,000,000 asylum seekers on it’s door, and we whinge about 30,000 of them.

Same too with the economy, clearly it doesn’t matter that our economy is NOT up the shit and that Labor kept us out of recession, the fact the Libs say it is over and over and over and that only they deliver surpluses (whatever that really means) means they win on that front too.

We can help the world by not becoming a haven for illegal terrorists masquerading as “asylum seekers”. Have you seen the pics on the Net of tattooed, muscular thugs arriving via boat and then forming middle eastern drug-running gangs in Sydney’s western suburbs? Of course we never see such things in cosseted Canberra as we discuss sustainable living over the soy lattes. I personally would like to see Navy subs patrolling the ocean torpedoing any asylum seeker boats.

As for the Labor government keeping us out of recession, it didn’t happen. The robust economy – complete with mining and China boom, not to mention healthy surplus and no foreign debt – bequeathed to Labor by the Howard government was responsible for that. The spraying around of stimulus money – rather than keeping us out of recession – put us into debt and fuelled inflation. Labor left behind a mess and it will take Abbott and the Libs probably three terms to repair the terrible damage. We can only hope and pray that the political cycle does not turn again and Labor does not return to government before the adults have had a chance to put things right again.

You bigot hatred really has driven you insane, hasn’t it?

BUT I SAW A PICTURE ON THE INTERWEBS IT MUST BE REAL!!!!!

chewy14 said :

Howeph,
This discussion has been has before but I would define a successful policy as one that :
helps the greatest number of refugees,
chosen from the worldwide pool of refugees who are at the greatest risk of persecution,
for a cost which is not excessively onerous on the Australian taxpayer.

Your solution virtually ensures that we will receive ever increasing number of refugees from those at a lower risk who can afford to pay to get to Indonesia. It fails all but possibly the first point above. We simply cannot help everyone so we need to prioritise our resources to where they can do the most good. Stopping boat arrivals is an integral part of that.

I would add another success factor of ‘effectively identifies asylum seekers who do not meet the test for refugee status or who are assessed as an unacceptable security risk, within an appropriate period of time’.

Howeph,
This discussion has been has before but I would define a successful policy as one that :
helps the greatest number of refugees,
chosen from the worldwide pool of refugees who are at the greatest risk of persecution,
for a cost which is not excessively onerous on the Australian taxpayer.

Your solution virtually ensures that we will receive ever increasing number of refugees from those at a lower risk who can afford to pay to get to Indonesia. It fails all but possibly the first point above. We simply cannot help everyone so we need to prioritise our resources to where they can do the most good. Stopping boat arrivals is an integral part of that.

CraigT said :

Result?
1 single, solitary Asylum claim from an illegal entrant by boat during the course of the entire calendar year 2002.

The APH research section doesn’t seem so sure of the deterrent effects of TPVs http://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/bn/2012-2013/boatarrivals#_Toc347230716

Given the percentage of TPV holders who eventually got permanency, I can’t see how that could have worked as a deterrent, which suggests something else was going on (e.g. changes in the “push factors” rather than in the “pull factor”). Anything else fails the common sense test.

Nor is mandatory detention, nor offshore processing “deterring” anyone now, even though those are far more unpleasant than a TPV. Which again says something is different about the push factors (NATO withdrawal from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka leaving Tamils without hope and/or experiencing persecution).

Correlation never proves causation, no matter how much you cross your fingers and wish for it to be so.

IP

CraigT said :

You conveniently ignore the date TPVs properly came into effect:

Changes to the law: 27 September 2001

Before 27 September 2001, refugees who were given TPVs in the first instance could apply for a PPV. To get a PPV, they had to prove that Australia still owed them protection and that they had held a TPV for 30 months. 6 Changes to the Migration Act which came into effect on 27 September 2001 have made it more difficult for refugees who hold TPVs to eventually get permanent protection.
‘7 day rule’

TPV holders who apply for permanent protection on or after 27 September 2001 cannot get a PPV if: since leaving their home country, they lived for 7 days or more in a country where they could have sought and obtained effective protection (either from the government of the country or through an office of the UNHCR located in that country). All they can get is another TPV – provided they can prove Australia still owes them protection and they have held a TPV for 30 months. The ‘7 day rule’ can be waived if the Minister for Immigration considers waiver is in the public interest.

Source: Not Wikipedia.
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/questions-and-answers-about-refugees-asylum-seekers

Result?
1 single, solitary Asylum claim from an illegal entrant by boat during the course of the entire calendar year 2002.

I’m not conveniently ignoring anything. You conveniently left out the preceding paragraphs from your source that agree with mine:

The Federal Government introduced TPVs in October 1999 in response to growing numbers of ‘unauthorised’ boat arrivals.

The TPV allows for three years temporary residence in Australia. After three years, depending on when and how they entered Australia, some TPV holders can apply for a Permanent Protection Visa (PPV) while others can only reapply for another TPV.

[Source The same as yours]

Your conclusion that TPVs stopped the boats is still wrong. Here is someone analysis of the efficacy of TPVs and the Pacific Solution for you:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/09/06/what-happened-as-a-result-of-tpvs-and-the-pacific-solution/

P.S. IrishPete – it answers your question too – “When [TPVs] were abolished, 88% of temporary visa holders had already been granted permanent status.”

howeph said :

CraigT said :

Your source is a flat-out lie. TPVs came into effect in late 2001. In 2002, Australia had 1 (that’s one) illegal boat arrival.

TPVs succeeded. The flow stopped dead. People stopped drowning. The taxpayer stopped funding the whole circus.

“A Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) was an Australian visa document introduced by the Howard Government on 20 October 1999”

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_protection_visa

You conveniently ignore the date TPVs properly came into effect:

Changes to the law: 27 September 2001

Before 27 September 2001, refugees who were given TPVs in the first instance could apply for a PPV. To get a PPV, they had to prove that Australia still owed them protection and that they had held a TPV for 30 months. 6 Changes to the Migration Act which came into effect on 27 September 2001 have made it more difficult for refugees who hold TPVs to eventually get permanent protection.
‘7 day rule’

TPV holders who apply for permanent protection on or after 27 September 2001 cannot get a PPV if: since leaving their home country, they lived for 7 days or more in a country where they could have sought and obtained effective protection (either from the government of the country or through an office of the UNHCR located in that country). All they can get is another TPV – provided they can prove Australia still owes them protection and they have held a TPV for 30 months. The ‘7 day rule’ can be waived if the Minister for Immigration considers waiver is in the public interest.

Source: Not Wikipedia.
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/questions-and-answers-about-refugees-asylum-seekers

Result?
1 single, solitary Asylum claim from an illegal entrant by boat during the course of the entire calendar year 2002.

CraigT said :

Your source is a flat-out lie. TPVs came into effect in late 2001. In 2002, Australia had 1 (that’s one) illegal boat arrival.

TPVs succeeded. The flow stopped dead. People stopped drowning. The taxpayer stopped funding the whole circus.

“A Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) was an Australian visa document introduced by the Howard Government on 20 October 1999”

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_protection_visa

howeph said :

IrishPete said :

Temporary Protection Visas were probably a point of difference.Though they weren’t ideal, they were probably a lot better than the alternatives (like indefinite detention) being used now. I’d also be interested to know what proportion of TPV holders were eventually granted full asylum anyway. If it was a lot, then TPVs may just have been window-dressing. Just like turning back boats, which any fule kno cannot and will not happen, because the crew or passengers will simply disable them or scuttle them. As happened in Howard’s era.

IP

By “no difference” I really mean “no substantive difference”. Of course there have been a great number of points of difference with the policies over the years, both between governments and during government terms; But the overarching policy is one of deterrence, with each successive government ultimately increasing the harshness of that deterrence.

TPVs is one of those points of difference and is another example of policy failure:

There has never been evidence that TPVs succeeded in deterring boat people. In the two years following its introduction the number of boat arrivals actually increased and the vast majority (90%) were ultimately granted permanent protection visas.

In fact, the most obvious effect of TPVs was an increase in the number of woman and children risking the potentially fatal journey to Australia in order to be reunited with their husbands and fathers.

Source: http://www.amnesty.org.au/refugees/comments/21704/

Your source is a flat-out lie. TPVs came into effect in late 2001. In 2002, Australia had 1 (that’s one) illegal boat arrival.

TPVs succeeded. The flow stopped dead. People stopped drowning. The taxpayer stopped funding the whole circus.

IrishPete said :

Temporary Protection Visas were probably a point of difference.Though they weren’t ideal, they were probably a lot better than the alternatives (like indefinite detention) being used now. I’d also be interested to know what proportion of TPV holders were eventually granted full asylum anyway. If it was a lot, then TPVs may just have been window-dressing. Just like turning back boats, which any fule kno cannot and will not happen, because the crew or passengers will simply disable them or scuttle them. As happened in Howard’s era.

IP

By “no difference” I really mean “no substantive difference”. Of course there have been a great number of points of difference with the policies over the years, both between governments and during government terms; But the overarching policy is one of deterrence, with each successive government ultimately increasing the harshness of that deterrence.

TPVs is one of those points of difference and is another example of policy failure:

There has never been evidence that TPVs succeeded in deterring boat people. In the two years following its introduction the number of boat arrivals actually increased and the vast majority (90%) were ultimately granted permanent protection visas.

In fact, the most obvious effect of TPVs was an increase in the number of woman and children risking the potentially fatal journey to Australia in order to be reunited with their husbands and fathers.

Source: http://www.amnesty.org.au/refugees/comments/21704/

Robertson said :

If they stop coming, they won’t suffer.

And you think I’m living in a fantasy world? They don’t just magically disappear.

Robertson said :

You attitude has caused the deaths of over 4,000 people misled into believing they should come to Australia by boat.

No it is the policies of deterrence that caused these deaths. If there was orderly processing of refugees in the region and they were flown here on planes they wouldn’t have died at sea.

Robertson said :

How are Malaysia and Indonesia’a “international standing”?
How is Japan’s “international standing”?

Shit. Want to join them?

Robertson said :

These countries resettle virtually zero refugees – why not criticise them?

Because I’m an Australian? These things are being done by my government in my name.

Robertson said :

howeph said :

At what cost to our national conscience?

None.

I don’t think that you believe in your own statement here. Why else launch off on a red herring:

Robertson said :

I am far more concerned that we are doing nothing about the genocide in West Papua, and which you lefties are apparently not interested in.

Robertson said :

howeph said :

I stand by my comment. Successive government’s deterrence policies have been a failure: one after the other. This new government is planning for continued failure.

Wrong.
http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2012/07/18/1226428/886084-2012-boat-arrivals.jpg
Howard’s policies stopped the boats, prevented deaths, he doubled immigration and he resettled more refugees per capita than any country in the world except for Canada. That is a policy success. If you can’t see that, you are incapable of rational analysis.
You are a fantasist.

You are continuing to talk past me.

You define policy success by a statistic. How many boats arrive.

I define policy success in much broader terms: support for human rights; level of human suffering prevented or induced; impacts to Australia’s social cohesion; international relations and standing; effect on other, as yet unknown, unintended consequences; along with the things that we agree on: deaths at sea, financial costs (including opportunity costs), etc.

A “success” by your definition can still be a complete failure by mine – but not the other way around.

By your definition the means used to stop the boats is immaterial. By mine it’s not.

Roundhead89 said :

JC said :

CraigT said :

Flogging a dead horse.

Tony Abbott wins on this issue – nothing you can do about it.

Sadly you are right, it wouldn’t matter people would still see the coalition as the ones to stop it, when of course the real question is rather than stopping it, what are we, a wealthy nation doing to help the world. I mean to say Jordon now has the best part of 1,000,000 asylum seekers on it’s door, and we whinge about 30,000 of them.

Same too with the economy, clearly it doesn’t matter that our economy is NOT up the shit and that Labor kept us out of recession, the fact the Libs say it is over and over and over and that only they deliver surpluses (whatever that really means) means they win on that front too.

We can help the world by not becoming a haven for illegal terrorists masquerading as “asylum seekers”. Have you seen the pics on the Net of tattooed, muscular thugs arriving via boat and then forming middle eastern drug-running gangs in Sydney’s western suburbs? Of course we never see such things in cosseted Canberra as we discuss sustainable living over the soy lattes. I personally would like to see Navy subs patrolling the ocean torpedoing any asylum seeker boats.

Do you seriously believe that terrorists enter our country by boats and that is why these policies are in effect? This comment alone shows that those who do not understand the politics and the issue, vote based on lies and fabrications. There is no proof of this at all.

howeph said :

You completely missed the point.

There is NO DIFFERENCE between the Labor and Liberal policies on asylum seekers:

* Labor under Keating introduced mandatory detention
* Howard institutionalised it and gave us the “Pacific Solution”
* Rudd 1 failed to provide an orderly alternative for asylum seekers
* Gillard tried East Timor & Malaysia solutions before only implementing the deterrence aspects of the “Expert Panel” recommendations bringing pack the “Pacific Solution”
* Rudd 2 has given us the harshest system yet: PNG
* Abbott has endorsed PNG and given operational control to the military under “Operation Sovereign Borders”

PNG may (and it’s still a big if) be a harsh enough deterrence to reduce the number of boat arrivals – but at what cost? At what cost in human suffering? At what cost to our international standing? At what cost to our national conscience?

I stand by my comment. Successive government’s deterrence policies have been a failure: one after the other. This new government is planning for continued failure.

You say I am a “fantasist”. To which I say that it is you who want to live in a fantasy world. You want to sweep these innocent, desperate people away; out of sight and out of your mind.

Temporary Protection Visas were probably a point of difference.Though they weren’t ideal, they were probably a lot better than the alternatives (like indefinite detention) being used now. I’d also be interested to know what proportion of TPV holders were eventually granted full asylum anyway. If it was a lot, then TPVs may just have been window-dressing. Just like turning back boats, which any fule kno cannot and will not happen, because the crew or passengers will simply disable them or scuttle them. As happened in Howard’s era.

IP

howeph said :

PNG may (and it’s still a big if) be a harsh enough deterrence to reduce the number of boat arrivals – but at what cost? At what cost in human suffering?

If they stop coming, they won’t suffer.

You attitude has caused the deaths of over 4,000 people misled into believing they should come to Australia by boat.

howeph said :

At what cost to our international standing?

None. We resettle more refugees per capita than any other country in the world

How are Malaysia and Indonesia’a “international standing”?
How is Japan’s “international standing”?

These countries resettle virtually zero refugees – why not criticise them?

howeph said :

At what cost to our national conscience?

None. I am far more concerned that we are doing nothing about the genocide in West Papua, and which you lefties are apparently not interested in.

howeph said :

I stand by my comment. Successive government’s deterrence policies have been a failure: one after the other. This new government is planning for continued failure.

Wrong.
http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2012/07/18/1226428/886084-2012-boat-arrivals.jpg
Howard’s policies stopped the boats, prevented deaths, he doubled immigration and he resettled more refugees per capita than any country in the world except for Canada. That is a policy success. If you can’t see that, you are incapable of rational analysis.
You are a fantasist.

CraigT said :

howeph said :

.. successive governments, both in Australia and in Indonesia, in a failed attempt to reduce the number of asylum seekers,

You’re a fantasist.

Under Howard’s policies illegal entrants by sea were reduced to just 100-odd people per year.

No idea who you think you’re fooling with your made-up nonsense.
Probably only yourself.

You completely missed the point.

There is NO DIFFERENCE between the Labor and Liberal policies on asylum seekers:

* Labor under Keating introduced mandatory detention
* Howard institutionalised it and gave us the “Pacific Solution”
* Rudd 1 failed to provide an orderly alternative for asylum seekers
* Gillard tried East Timor & Malaysia solutions before only implementing the deterrence aspects of the “Expert Panel” recommendations bringing pack the “Pacific Solution”
* Rudd 2 has given us the harshest system yet: PNG
* Abbott has endorsed PNG and given operational control to the military under “Operation Sovereign Borders”

PNG may (and it’s still a big if) be a harsh enough deterrence to reduce the number of boat arrivals – but at what cost? At what cost in human suffering? At what cost to our international standing? At what cost to our national conscience?

I stand by my comment. Successive government’s deterrence policies have been a failure: one after the other. This new government is planning for continued failure.

You say I am a “fantasist”. To which I say that it is you who want to live in a fantasy world. You want to sweep these innocent, desperate people away; out of sight and out of your mind.

howeph said :

.. successive governments, both in Australia and in Indonesia, in a failed attempt to reduce the number of asylum seekers,

You’re a fantasist.

Under Howard’s policies illegal entrants by sea were reduced to just 100-odd people per year.

No idea who you think you’re fooling with your made-up nonsense.
Probably only yourself.

JC said :

CraigT said :

Flogging a dead horse.

Tony Abbott wins on this issue – nothing you can do about it.

Sadly you are right, it wouldn’t matter people would still see the coalition as the ones to stop it, when of course the real question is rather than stopping it, what are we, a wealthy nation doing to help the world. I mean to say Jordon now has the best part of 1,000,000 asylum seekers on it’s door, and we whinge about 30,000 of them.

Same too with the economy, clearly it doesn’t matter that our economy is NOT up the shit and that Labor kept us out of recession, the fact the Libs say it is over and over and over and that only they deliver surpluses (whatever that really means) means they win on that front too.

We can help the world by not becoming a haven for illegal terrorists masquerading as “asylum seekers”. Have you seen the pics on the Net of tattooed, muscular thugs arriving via boat and then forming middle eastern drug-running gangs in Sydney’s western suburbs? Of course we never see such things in cosseted Canberra as we discuss sustainable living over the soy lattes. I personally would like to see Navy subs patrolling the ocean torpedoing any asylum seeker boats.

As for the Labor government keeping us out of recession, it didn’t happen. The robust economy – complete with mining and China boom, not to mention healthy surplus and no foreign debt – bequeathed to Labor by the Howard government was responsible for that. The spraying around of stimulus money – rather than keeping us out of recession – put us into debt and fuelled inflation. Labor left behind a mess and it will take Abbott and the Libs probably three terms to repair the terrible damage. We can only hope and pray that the political cycle does not turn again and Labor does not return to government before the adults have had a chance to put things right again.

Robertson said :

Still, with the ALP having wasted 10 billion on their anti-solution, the Libs will be able to provide a lot of entertainment before coming anywhere near looking as bad.

Please take a moment to read carefully what you have written.

You call the asylum seeker issue “entertainment”…

Maybe you misspoke?

Or I wonder if you are a fit person to engage in political and social debate?

Maybe you should take a little time to come up with more considered comments and if you do make a mistake, like we all do, graciously correct it.

CraigT said :

Flogging a dead horse.

Tony Abbott wins on this issue – nothing you can do about it.

Sadly you are right, it wouldn’t matter people would still see the coalition as the ones to stop it, when of course the real question is rather than stopping it, what are we, a wealthy nation doing to help the world. I mean to say Jordon now has the best part of 1,000,000 asylum seekers on it’s door, and we whinge about 30,000 of them.

Same too with the economy, clearly it doesn’t matter that our economy is NOT up the shit and that Labor kept us out of recession, the fact the Libs say it is over and over and over and that only they deliver surpluses (whatever that really means) means they win on that front too.

Robertson said :

howeph said :

By the way Robertson, in your earlier comments you talk about policy success and failure on this issue without articulating what you mean by it. I.e. How do you define policy success with respect to asylums seekers? .

Ok, success is where we were at with Howard:
100-odd arrivals per year, virtually nobody in detention, virtually no costs.
Highest per capita refugee resettlement rate in the world bar Canada with none of them having to risk their lives getting here by boat.

Policy failure is where we have been ever since:
10,000+ arrivals per year, over 4,000 deaths, 10 billion $ spent, thousands in detention.

Let me remind you what refugee policy looked like under Howard:
(WARNING: The following footage taken inside the Curtin Detention centre is quite graphic)

Lest We Forget – Howard’s Hellholes

That is policy failure.

(A more in-depth reminder of what mandatory detention, for the purpose of deterring others, looks like can be see on this 4 Corners program)

The PNG solution, initiated by Labor under Rudd and adopted by the new government is guaranteed to repeat this folly, only worse. They just hope to keep it a secret.

You mention the death’s at sea. That too is a policy failure of successive Liberal and Labor governments. I addressed this in this forum in comment #57 of another thread on this issue:

… successive governments, both in Australia and in Indonesia, in a failed attempt to reduce the number of asylum seekers, cracked down on and introduced new laws to criminalise [people smuggling]. As a result the people smuggling operations are now conducted by hardened criminals.

Like making drugs illegal attracts the worst type of criminals to the drug trade, so to has the criminalising of the people smuggling of asylum seekers. Whereas say ten years ago a group of assylum seekers would charter a fishing boat to bring them to Australia now they are forced to deal with criminals who’s primary concern is maximising their profits, not the safety their boats or the asylum seekers’ lives.

The current Liberal policy is a further escalation of these failed, despicable policies.

Robertson said :

It seems virtually inconceivable the Liberals will make anywhere near as much of a mess as the ALP did on this issue.

Wan’t to bet on it? Just wait and see what horror stories continue to emerge from Manus Island and Nauru.

Robertson said :

Therefore, if you want to crticise the Libs, pick ANY other issue. Just not this one.

Sun Tzu: reinforce success. attack weakness.

Please don’t be patronising.

JC said :

Robertson said :

Ok, success is where we were at with Howard:
100-odd arrivals per year, virtually nobody in detention, virtually no costs.
Highest per capita refugee resettlement rate in the world bar Canada with none of them having to risk their lives getting here by boat.

Policy failure is where we have been ever since:
10,000+ arrivals per year, over 4,000 deaths, 10 billion $ spent, thousands in detention.

The ALP achieved excellent successes (especially economic) during its terms on virtually every other front but this one.

It seems virtually inconceivable the Liberals will make anywhere near as much of a mess as the ALP did on this issue. On the other hand, it seems fairly obvious that the Liberals will be an absolute disaster in any number of other areas.

Therefore, if you want to crticise the Libs, pick ANY other issue. Just not this one.

Sun Tzu: reinforce success. attack weakness.

Interesting figures. Though you should keep in mind that the period of time when Howard had low arrival numbers (as reported by them BTW, who knows what the real figure was) was also a period in history where the number of people WORLD WIDE seeking asylum was down. In particular the bulk of the seekers at present are from Sri Lanka where the civil war ended in 2009.

You also complain about deaths under Labor, how many were there under Howard?

Flogging a dead horse.

Tony Abbott wins on this issue – nothing you can do about it.

Robertson said :

peitab said :

On the whole I tend to agree with your sentiment – I only hope Libs do better than Labor in ultimately helping refugees – but we should put the problem in the right perspective. The numbers of boat arrivals in the last few years are comparable to the numbers of arrivals in the middle years of Howard’s PM-ship. And the numbers are nowhere near ‘5-figures’ per year.

Oops, you are correct, for some reason I had the figure “17,000” in mind – I’m guessing that was 2012’s figure for all illegals including visa-breakers.

http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2012/07/18/1226428/886084-2012-boat-arrivals.jpg

Picture is worth a thousand words.

WTF? Someone on RA admits they made a mistake? I’ll be buggered, there’s a first time for everything! My hat is off to you.

Now, where’s that tack bloke who’s on the rong tact…

Robertson said :

Ok, success is where we were at with Howard:
100-odd arrivals per year, virtually nobody in detention, virtually no costs.
Highest per capita refugee resettlement rate in the world bar Canada with none of them having to risk their lives getting here by boat.

Policy failure is where we have been ever since:
10,000+ arrivals per year, over 4,000 deaths, 10 billion $ spent, thousands in detention.

The ALP achieved excellent successes (especially economic) during its terms on virtually every other front but this one.

It seems virtually inconceivable the Liberals will make anywhere near as much of a mess as the ALP did on this issue. On the other hand, it seems fairly obvious that the Liberals will be an absolute disaster in any number of other areas.

Therefore, if you want to crticise the Libs, pick ANY other issue. Just not this one.

Sun Tzu: reinforce success. attack weakness.

Interesting figures. Though you should keep in mind that the period of time when Howard had low arrival numbers (as reported by them BTW, who knows what the real figure was) was also a period in history where the number of people WORLD WIDE seeking asylum was down. In particular the bulk of the seekers at present are from Sri Lanka where the civil war ended in 2009.

You also complain about deaths under Labor, how many were there under Howard?

johnboy said :

True, if we didn’t destroy the boats they arrive on then they’d use better boats.

I think the Libs are going to solve that by buying every boat in Indonesia. (I’m thinking they haven’t run that one by Adam Smith yet, though…. )

Still, with the ALP having wasted 10 billion on their anti-solution, the Libs will be able to provide a lot of entertainment before coming anywhere near looking as bad.

peitab said :

Robertson said :

From that last link:
“2012–13: 403 boats:

423 crew

25 173illegal entrants

Oops, now it appears I’ve been looking at out-of-date data! Thanks for finding those most recent figures for 2012 Robertson – it’s amazing to see how the numbers have skyrocketed. I wonder if there’s been any corresponding effect on arrivals by plane?

I imagine the number of people dying in plane accidents whilst entering Australia illegally is zero.
By boat it is over 4,000 now, from what I was reading. That is an utter disgrace.

And the 10 billion wasted on this crap could have been spent improving the lot of hundreds of thousands of genuine refugees in East Africa, for example.

And if we *are* concerned about genuine refugees, when are we going to do something about the ongoing genocide in West Papua? If we are not responsible for what goes on right here on our doorstep, I don’t see why we should have any involvement with resettling Tamils fleeing from the consequences of their unsuccessful invasion of Sri Lanka from their homeland which is less than the distance from here to Sydney away.

howeph said :

By the way Robertson, in your earlier comments you talk about policy success and failure on this issue without articulating what you mean by it. I.e. How do you define policy success with respect to asylums seekers? .

Ok, success is where we were at with Howard:
100-odd arrivals per year, virtually nobody in detention, virtually no costs.
Highest per capita refugee resettlement rate in the world bar Canada with none of them having to risk their lives getting here by boat.

Policy failure is where we have been ever since:
10,000+ arrivals per year, over 4,000 deaths, 10 billion $ spent, thousands in detention.

The ALP achieved excellent successes (especially economic) during its terms on virtually every other front but this one.

It seems virtually inconceivable the Liberals will make anywhere near as much of a mess as the ALP did on this issue. On the other hand, it seems fairly obvious that the Liberals will be an absolute disaster in any number of other areas.

Therefore, if you want to crticise the Libs, pick ANY other issue. Just not this one.

Sun Tzu: reinforce success. attack weakness.

Does anyone else see something very wrong about the ‘liberal’ party clamping down on freedom of speech? The party title has always been a little Orwellian (as they have never been true liberals but are conservatives), but this development is rather Nazi.

People were ringing the Labor minister asking why boat REFO 598 was late and how much longer till it pulled up at the wharf.

I never heard that the people of Christmas island would be treated like North Korea and not be able to contact anyone in the main land.

Not one word from Stanhope about how people being moved on in 2 days rather than weeks or months. Tha’ts a good start there and it only took 2 days of new government. Well done I say.

Robertson said :

Robertson said :

peitab said :

On the whole I tend to agree with your sentiment – I only hope Libs do better than Labor in ultimately helping refugees – but we should put the problem in the right perspective. The numbers of boat arrivals in the last few years are comparable to the numbers of arrivals in the middle years of Howard’s PM-ship. And the numbers are nowhere near ‘5-figures’ per year.

Oops, you are correct, for some reason I had the figure “17,000” in mind – I’m guessing that was 2012’s figure for all illegals including visa-breakers.

http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2012/07/18/1226428/886084-2012-boat-arrivals.jpg

Picture is worth a thousand words.

Oops, turns out you were wrong and I was right, here are some more uptodate figures:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/Unlawful_Boat_Arrivals_to_Australia%281989-2012%29.png

http://www.wnd.com/files/2013/03/IllegalArrivals.jpg

http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/54%20Parliamentary%20Depts/544%20Parliamentary%20Library/Research%20Papers/2013-14/BoatArrivals-2.ashx

From that last link:
“2012–13: 403 boats:

423 crew

25 173illegal entrants

Oops, now it appears I’ve been looking at out-of-date data! Thanks for finding those most recent figures for 2012 Robertson – it’s amazing to see how the numbers have skyrocketed. I wonder if there’s been any corresponding effect on arrivals by plane?

Robertson said :

howeph said :

P.S. Stanhope isn’t concerned about the frequency of information; he’s worried that he and/or the residents of Christmas Island may be gagged with respect to talking about asylum seeker movements. This is understandable given the language being used by Scott Morrison: “Taking control of how that information is released denies people smugglers the opportunity to exploit such information”; especially it is combined by the fact that this is now being turned into a military operation under “Operation Sovereign Borders”.

As a government employee, he is no more entitled to issue personal an unauthorised press releases than I am about the activities taking place in my workplace.

I am not a lawyer, and I know next to nothing about constitutional law. But my 30sec search indicates that the administrator of Christmas Island is appointed by the Governor-General and represents the monarch, not the government. Of course that appointment is first nominated by the government of the day and the Governor-General only officially endorses it; but it does mean, I think, that the administrator is not the typical public servant position that you think it is. It is a position with with a certain independence from the government and one which normally would be free to make press releases in the interest of Christmas Island.

Robertson said :

I don’t see any reason to suspect “residents of Christmas Island” are being gagged, or indeed could be gagged.

We’ll see. There are a number of things been done by our governments that I thought couldn’t be done because they are illegal…

Robertson said :

If you want to be the cheer squad for the ALP, for god’s sake pick another issue – on this one you absolutely cannot score any points, the more you struggle, the deeper you get.

Who’s cheering for the ALP? Not me. I called it a ‘National Disgrace’. I do lay the blame for dragging this issue to the depths that it is on the Conservatives; but I hold the ALP in utter contempt too for their gutlessness over this issue. The ALP allowed itself to be browbeaten into acting contrary to its ethics and ideals. Shame on them.

By the way Robertson, in your earlier comments you talk about policy success and failure on this issue without articulating what you mean by it. I.e. How do you define policy success with respect to asylums seekers? Whilst I think that I can make a reasonable guess of your position, without this context I can’t determine for sure if I agree or disagree with your comments. We all want to see a successful policy outcome but if some define success differently than others then one persons successful outcome could be another’s failure.

howeph said :

P.S. Stanhope isn’t concerned about the frequency of information; he’s worried that he and/or the residents of Christmas Island may be gagged with respect to talking about asylum seeker movements. This is understandable given the language being used by Scott Morrison: “Taking control of how that information is released denies people smugglers the opportunity to exploit such information”; especially it is combined by the fact that this is now being turned into a military operation under “Operation Sovereign Borders”.

As a government employee, he is no more entitled to issue personal an unauthorised press releases than I am about the activities taking place in my workplace.

I don’t see any reason to suspect “residents of Christmas Island” are being gagged, or indeed could be gagged.

If you want to be the cheer squad for the ALP, for god’s sake pick another issue – on this one you absolutely cannot score any points, the more you struggle, the deeper you get.

johnboy said :

caf said :

Excuse me if I raise an arched eyebrow at the sudden concern with “de-polticising the issue” when the current mob in power spent the last six years at least politicising it as hard as they could!

I’m not saying they’re doing it out of the goodness of their lily white hearts.

But a monthly report of all (not just boats) asylum claims, visa overstays, and other entries to immigration detention, would be just fine.

A monthly report would be fine, but lets wait and see the spin, depending on boat arrivals going up or down.

I still think anyone who thinks a boat person cares about whether they are processed in Australia or not though and decides whether to come or not based on that fact is a bit naive. Travel to some of these countries, the people don’t care, they travel on hope alone. Sure being locked up in Nauru, Manaus Is. etc is not great, but to argue that local policy makes a huge difference is naive. There are so many factors that go into boat people and why they come to Australia. For example Indonesia have stopped giving Iranians visas on arrival. That will have an effect and i’m sure it will be claimed by the government.

And both side of politics used the issue to win over paranoid voters. Surely plans involving humane processing of boat people and working with Indonesia to catch the people smugglers, via resourcing and training their police force and patrol boats would have netted a better result.

Robertson said :

Oops, turns out you were wrong and I was right, here are some more uptodate figures:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/Unlawful_Boat_Arrivals_to_Australia%281989-2012%29.png

http://www.wnd.com/files/2013/03/IllegalArrivals.jpg

http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/54%20Parliamentary%20Depts/544%20Parliamentary%20Library/Research%20Papers/2013-14/BoatArrivals-2.ashx

From that last link:
“2012–13: 403 boats:

423 crew

25 173illegal entrants

Actually you are wrong on one VERY important point. Now whilst the boat arrivals and their crew may be illegal, the actual passengers, read asylum seekers are not actually illegals. Something Tony Abbott and co seem to conveniently forget in their hysteria whipping and something you are clearly parroting quite wrongly.

MERC600 said :

Mr Evil said :

Tony, please send him back to Canberra so we can nail his worthless carcass to the giant penis (owl) in Belcompton.

No no.. Hells bells we don’t want him back. Took bloody years to get rid of him.
Don’t we own some other rocks in the middle of the sea that he could lord over. What about Xmas Island, do we own that ? Norfolk island perhaps.

Are there many real estate developers on Christmas Island?

johnboy said :

Boat arrivals as small as 3 people have warranted media releases under the previous policy.

I bet not a day goes by where Sydney Airport doesn’t have more people going to Villawood?

There is no mandatory detention of asylum seekers arriving by plane. Some may go to Villawood, many are “students” who apply for asylum after leaving the airport.

IP

Robertson said :

peitab said :

On the whole I tend to agree with your sentiment – I only hope Libs do better than Labor in ultimately helping refugees – but we should put the problem in the right perspective. The numbers of boat arrivals in the last few years are comparable to the numbers of arrivals in the middle years of Howard’s PM-ship. And the numbers are nowhere near ‘5-figures’ per year.

Oops, you are correct, for some reason I had the figure “17,000” in mind – I’m guessing that was 2012’s figure for all illegals including visa-breakers.

http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2012/07/18/1226428/886084-2012-boat-arrivals.jpg

Picture is worth a thousand words.

Oops, turns out you were wrong and I was right, here are some more uptodate figures:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/Unlawful_Boat_Arrivals_to_Australia%281989-2012%29.png

http://www.wnd.com/files/2013/03/IllegalArrivals.jpg

http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/54%20Parliamentary%20Depts/544%20Parliamentary%20Library/Research%20Papers/2013-14/BoatArrivals-2.ashx

From that last link:
“2012–13: 403 boats: 423 crew 25 173illegal entrants

peitab said :

On the whole I tend to agree with your sentiment – I only hope Libs do better than Labor in ultimately helping refugees – but we should put the problem in the right perspective. The numbers of boat arrivals in the last few years are comparable to the numbers of arrivals in the middle years of Howard’s PM-ship. And the numbers are nowhere near ‘5-figures’ per year.

Oops, you are correct, for some reason I had the figure “17,000” in mind – I’m guessing that was 2012’s figure for all illegals including visa-breakers.

http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2012/07/18/1226428/886084-2012-boat-arrivals.jpg

Picture is worth a thousand words.

Johnboy said: “It is also worth noting that the decision to announce via media release every single boat arrival is largely what made this stupid non-issue into the maker and breaker of Governments.”

No, it was the shrill overreaction to this simple factual information by the conservative sections of the media and the dog whistling of the Liberal party (both in government and opposition) that debased an important ethical issue into the national disgrace that it has become.

Saying it was largely because of too frequent publication of information is a gross oversimplification that completely misses the real story of this issue.

P.S. Stanhope isn’t concerned about the frequency of information; he’s worried that he and/or the residents of Christmas Island may be gagged with respect to talking about asylum seeker movements. This is understandable given the language being used by Scott Morrison: “Taking control of how that information is released denies people smugglers the opportunity to exploit such information”; especially it is combined by the fact that this is now being turned into a military operation under “Operation Sovereign Borders”.

So now Christmas Islanders can’t tell us what is happening on their doorstep? I thought this sort of mind control of people in a democracy during peace-time was confined to science fiction. But no, the Abbott thought-control juggernaut is already swinging into action.

I suppose all those boats appearing on the horizon will just be figments of Christmas Islanders’ imaginations.

It’s lucky that the troglodyte Abbott won’t let the NBN lose any time soon. Good God, people might start using it to tell each other what is going on.

What a turkey Morrison is.

Robertson said :

While I agree with what you are saying, JB, I think that in all this frenetic complaining/defensiveness about the actions of the Liberals on this issue in this, their first week of government, we are losing sight of the very real fact that the ALP had its chance, and it produced a fail on this issue of absolutely epic proportions.

When the ALP came into power, boat arrivals were infrequent (100-or-so arriving per year) and detention was virtually empty.

Fast-forward 6 years, and we’ve seen boat arrivals in the 5-figures per year, over 4,000 deaths at sea, detention centres full to the brim and experiencing regular assaults, rapes and riots, all of this at a cost impost on the taxpayer of over 10 billion dollars, not to mention this problem having unnecessarily hijacked the real issues.

Let’s give the Libs 3 years (hopefully that’s all they get). It is inconceivable that they should do a worse job (on this issue) than the ALP did. Let’s reserve judgment until there are some concrete results on which to base an analysis.

On the whole I tend to agree with your sentiment – I only hope Libs do better than Labor in ultimately helping refugees – but we should put the problem in the right perspective. The numbers of boat arrivals in the last few years are comparable to the numbers of arrivals in the middle years of Howard’s PM-ship. And the numbers are nowhere near ‘5-figures’ per year.

caf said :

Excuse me if I raise an arched eyebrow at the sudden concern with “de-polticising the issue” when the current mob in power spent the last six years at least politicising it as hard as they could!

I’m not saying they’re doing it out of the goodness of their lily white hearts.

But a monthly report of all (not just boats) asylum claims, visa overstays, and other entries to immigration detention, would be just fine.

Excuse me if I raise an arched eyebrow at the sudden concern with “de-polticising the issue” when the current mob in power spent the last six years at least politicising it as hard as they could!

Mr Evil said :

Tony, please send him back to Canberra so we can nail his worthless carcass to the giant penis (owl) in Belcompton.

No no.. Hells bells we don’t want him back. Took bloody years to get rid of him.
Don’t we own some other rocks in the middle of the sea that he could lord over. What about Xmas Island, do we own that ? Norfolk island perhaps.

Our cup (truly) runneth over. Aside from the inevitable adjunct professorship, I am seeing a guest spot on local ABC radio, from whence he will be able to keep the flame alive, and prod his successors for not being sufficiently left wing.

Dilandach said :

I’m sure de-politicising the arrivals is part of the motivation behind the new policy of not announcing arrivals. The cynic in me sees this as more of a move to hide policy failure and embarrassment to the new government.

I’m no liberal shill, but perhaps we need to give them more than 5 days from meeting the GG before we decry their policies a failure… You know perhaps a sitting day or two might also be a good thing for them to do as well…

Just a thought…

As for instant notification whenever a boat arrived, well it did completely overshadow the real issues, and even overshadowed real immigration issues.

Tony, please send him back to Canberra so we can nail his worthless carcass to the giant penis (owl) in Belcompton.

Dilandach said :

The cynic in me sees this as more of a move to hide policy failure and embarrassment to the new government.

Policy failure?

I what possible way could the Liberals end up with any more embarrassing failure than the last governments’ on this issue?

I do think that politically-motivated anti-Libs will have to direct their attentions onto other issues than illegal boat arrivals – because this is one issue the Libs really can’t #@$% up any worse than the last lot did.

I’m sure de-politicising the arrivals is part of the motivation behind the new policy of not announcing arrivals. The cynic in me sees this as more of a move to hide policy failure and embarrassment to the new government.

How far does the blackout extend? If a boat breaks up on the rocks of christmas island and dozens drown, do they advise the media? If the navy physically forces or turns back a boat which later sinks and again causes deaths, are the media going to be advised?

While I agree with what you are saying, JB, I think that in all this frenetic complaining/defensiveness about the actions of the Liberals on this issue in this, their first week of government, we are losing sight of the very real fact that the ALP had its chance, and it produced a fail on this issue of absolutely epic proportions.

When the ALP came into power, boat arrivals were infrequent (100-or-so arriving per year) and detention was virtually empty.

Fast-forward 6 years, and we’ve seen boat arrivals in the 5-figures per year, over 4,000 deaths at sea, detention centres full to the brim and experiencing regular assaults, rapes and riots, all of this at a cost impost on the taxpayer of over 10 billion dollars, not to mention this problem having unnecessarily hijacked the real issues.

Let’s give the Libs 3 years (hopefully that’s all they get). It is inconceivable that they should do a worse job (on this issue) than the ALP did. Let’s reserve judgment until there are some concrete results on which to base an analysis.

Firstly let me say “Christmas Island… you can keep him!”
Secondly, does it matter if we’re getting told or not? All these ‘media releases’ are is a cheap headline in the paper or on the news.

“We do not announce every 747 arriving at Sydney Airport with asylum seekers onboard (they are never, ever announced, nor are British backpackers overstaying their visas).”

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying, the analogy is probably not the best one to use.

We dont report on every visa overstay or asylum seeker that gets off a plane, cruise ship or freighter, however I’m sure a chartered 747 full of refugees landing at Sydney with no clearance sure as hell would make front page news.