Labor to turn back the boats.

[Tannin]

[David]

As far as I can see, the argument that "the boats have stopped" is a red herring. That's a superficial claim that could be made just as well if we were torpedoing vessels in the Indian Ocean or enclosing Australia in a plastic dome, Mr. Burns style. It tells us nothing about deterrence. What we really want to know is, how many refugees in the region are still leaving their place of origin by boat?

If the answer is zero, then your argument is correct: Rudd and Abbott have killed the boat trade. But if it's not, then we don't really know what effect our policies have had (whether it be a massive deterrent, slight deterrent or no deterrent at all), unless of course someone can produce data to that effect. So far, it's all conjecture as far as I can tell, and obviously the government's fog of secrecy isn't helping.

[Tannin]

Bah, we already know the answer. None.

(Some may be leaving and then going back again. That is neither here nor there. Some may be going to other places. That too is irrelevant.)

[Mugwump]

^ The above suggests to me that data on a political matter is of limited use when people want to believe the contrary. Someone who does not ilke that the data says, will always shift the goalposts by challenging the experimental conditions, the influence of exogenous variables, hypothesis construction, or whatever. I do it myself, of course. We all do.

In this case the data shows clearly enough to my satisfaction that the boat arrivals are hugely influenced by Aust Government policy - as one would expect. The debate shoudl really be about whether the policy (and its intentions, execution and implicaitons) are honourable or not.

[HAL]

Do you think I am that person?

[pietillidie]

[David]

Another problem we need to return to is that, even if we could demonstrate that government policy is significantly deterring people from trying to get to Australia (and while I've seen no data on that, it is at least somewhat plausible), we don't know what percentage of the 'deterred' aren't simply hopping on a boat to somewhere else. These are hugely important details for people who support the current policies on humanitarian grounds (i.e. stopping deaths at sea).

Because, if people are still making it most of the way to Australia before being turned back, there is still the risk of deaths at sea. If people are getting on a boat to Indonesia or Malaysia or Thailand, there is still the risk of deaths at sea. If people are opting to stay in camps instead, there is still the risk of death by starvation, or disease, or persecution.

A policy based on saving lives has to be shown to be saving more lives than it is costing. That should be obvious. Can any of the defenders of this policy demonstrate that this is the case here?

[Pies4shaw]

It's just disingenuous doublespeak. We used to recognise this a couple of decades back but it seems that our collective critical distance from the garbage spat out by the poisonous lizards we elect has somewhat dissipated.

[pietillidie]

[Pies4shaw]

Yep. Did you know that they get to live in those refugee camps for free? I'm a little surprised we haven't all raced off to do that ourselves.

[Tannin]

But the reality is that government policy DOES influence arrival numbers. It has, in point of fact, reduced illegal arrivals to zero. Repeat, ZERO. None. Nil.

The constant bleating of people who don't like the way that Rudd II and Abbott have achieved this carries on in blind, willful, and astonishingly pig-headed ignorance of the facts - facts not even the bleaters can deny.

(I don't like the way they've done it either, it's appalling and more worthy of a South American dictatorship than of this once-fine country. But the fact remains that the policy settings have worked. I would like to deny that coz I despise Rudd and think even less of Abbott, but - unlike the bleating heart brigade - I pay attention to proven facts.)

[pietillidie]

Well, you might dislike the bleating heart brigade; heck, there's an entire half or more of the electorate devoted solely to reacting against them.

One of the problems here is that you're fighting a side battle in a much greater war of instability. The adult issues here look nothing like the trite campaign cowardice Beazley acquiesced to all those years ago now.

Here we are, almost a decade-and-a-half later, and the adult problem grows. Whether the burden of that problem is towed away to a remote camp somewhere, or placed on Australia's standing in the region, or shifted onto dead Rohingya, it it is being only temporarily dealt with on the basis of a general Australian ignorance of geography, and a usual lack of emotional discipline.

Have people even noticed what is happened worldwide? A retreat to the hills beyond Ballarat might make you feel a sense of resolution (half your luck!), but it has no bearing on this very high-risk, very challenging problem.

Just take the Indonesia relationship. I mean, as if nothing could ever go wrong there in the midst of such human unity, geological stability and geographic coherence

The risks build and the threats grow because, unlike the post-war Anglo-European world of our parents, the peoples and countries in our region and similar are still working towards their new settlement wars, trade blocks and Marshall Plans.

Iraq was a turning point in so many ways, especially for the really dumb who somehow missed the message of Vietnam. The peasants are now too sophisticated to control in the old ways. The populations are too big; the technology too transferable; the economic transactions too networked; the death of each and every young person mercifully better-documented; the TV crews and mobile phones too ubiquitous.

Throw in an expected rise of extreme weather events and the ever-present threat of contagious disease, under conditions of massive population growth, and you're not playing tiddly winks that can be managed with Abbott's unsinkable orange dinghies. Almost every serious problem now is a potential Iraq. Everyone you get offside is someone who won't help you in a disaster. Every political enemy is a potential ally of some outfit gone wrong. All that under conditions of economic decline and widening social instability and childish bitterness in the old power countries.

The adult response is not to double-down on the mega failure of Iraq group think. It's to stop feeling so self-entitled and being so immature that we imagine towing away the reality of the world for a few election cycles is a solution without costs. Thirteen plus years and still no adult solution; thirteen plus years and the budget costs mount while the cost of basics like education go through the roof; thirteen plus years and global people movements are at another high; thirteen plus years and Asia is even more unstable; thirteen plus years and the Aussie economy is even more locked into the dirty old commodity cycle; thirteen plus years and the arrogant and juvenile thought process behind Iraq and Tampa carries on.

This whole childish longing for the life of the rural nineteenth-century feudal lord has got to be smashed and quick smart. I for one am tired for paying for other people's lack of discipline, world ignorance, and outright negligence.

The battle you're focusing on is not the right one because even if we get rid of Abbott the same negligent scaremongering and cost-shifting will simply appear in the very next election campaign. Meanwhile, global populations keeps rising, and the dependence of our well-being on the good of the whole keeps growing.

[Tannin]

^ An amusing rant (well, it amused me, nearly everyone else will just say TLDR) but one lacking in any kind of focus or - because of that lack of focus - point.

[pietillidie]

[Tannin]

Whinge away chum. So far as I can tell from your recent rants, you don't even know what my views on this topic are. If you would prefer to have a useful and possibly even productive discussion (as opposed to just an excuse for more ranting), perhaps a sensible starting point would be for you to briefly outline my views as you understand them. Then we can either clarify your understanding and move on to more productive territory, or (possibly) agree that your present understanding is more-or-less correct and we can move the discussion on from there.

(You keep telling world + dog how wrong my views are, but so far as I can tell from your (frankly rather disjointed) rambles, you don't seem to have a decent grasp on what those views you oppose so firmly actually are. I have outlined them at various times on these pages, but it's not really fair to expect anyone to have read every post, let alone remember it all.)