Labor to turn back the boats.

[stui magpie]

[Mugwump]

^ thanks Stui. Pretty good article, though the challenge, as Skids said, will be in executing it.

[Mugwump]

[pietillidie]

How freaking long have they had to construct a rational regional alternative? Wouldn't know what new ideas looked like if they were drowning in them.

The world is facing one refugee crisis after another, and climate change and population growth are only going to make things worse. Anyone with half a set of knackers would have seized the opportunity long ago to start forging a much bigger regional and then global, integrated solution.

The EU would fall over itself to make this global, too.

But it's not over yet, Bill. Now, take your focus on climate change, which is a global problem, and weave the refugee crisis into it, and then mix in the Middle East instability and terrorism problems, which are closely interrelated global problems. Have the kahunas to do a Paul Keating.

Just targeting the rapid phase-in of renewables will go a long way towards gaining a lasting solution in the Middle East, which is where most of the new refugees are coming from, and where Australia's terrorism threat is largely coming from.

C'mon Bill: Seize the effing moment to transcend yourself and put the wheels in motion.

[David]

One issue that everybody seems to be overlooking here is that towing back boats causes significant harm to our relationship with Indonesia. And I think they have quite a legitimate grievance, too: why should this relatively impoverished country carry the weight of the various regional humanitarian crises while we effectively lock the gates and play the "we'll take only as many refugees as we feel like" game?

Other countries don't have the luxury of making that call, because as long as people in the Middle East and South East Asia are left to waste away in refugee camps - or face death or torture - they will keep coming. And we will never stop those boats; we'll just stop them from coming here. A rather fundamental difference that often seems to be overlooked.

So, yeah, there are things we can do about pulling our weight while maintaining aspects of Abbott's policies - increasing our intake, for one, and also taking on refugees from Indonesia. Perhaps under such conditions a turnback policy could be argued to be ethical and responsible (though still, it must be pointed out, in serious breach of the refugee convention).

The detention centres on Nauru and elsewhere need to be closed, though; such brutality is a national shame and a stain that will take generations to remove, even after the apologies have been made and the politicians have been jailed. That Marles insists on defending offshore processing is indicative of the Labor Party's cowardice on this topic, and I hope and expect that they will continue to bleed votes to the Greens as a result.

[Dangles]

Interesting discussion with lots to consider. I'll need to do a lot more research into the issue before I can weigh in with any confidence.

[Tannin]

[pietillidie]

^I haven't seen Indonesia's national budget to know if that's a fair call or not, but they're a very poor nation still, so there's no need to frame it as a negligence or carelessness even if it isn't a priority for them!

[David]

[pietillidie]

^Yes and the geography as David says! Huge point. Too harsh, Tannic One!

[Tannin]

Bahh: Indonesia has way more people we have, and they are cheap to hire, but it doesn't even try to stop anyone. (Oh, they have some rules, but nothing a fistful of dollars in the right hand can't fix.) And this has nothing whatever to do with geography: entry on false papers is standard practice, and these forgeries are easily detected (which is why refugees arriving into Australian waters throw them away). In any case, the reason they arrive in Indonesia (rather than somewhere much closer to home and easier to get to) is that Indonesia is (or was) the place you go to to get into Australia. Now that you can't get into Australia from Indonesia anymore, what would be the point of going there?

Harsh? Not in the slightest. It's just reality.

[David]

The point, of course, is that they need to get out. Australia is one of the more attractive destinations in the region, no doubt; but to suggest that genuine refugees will just stay at home if we shut the gates is a bit naive.

There are doubtless statistics on this if you can be bothered looking them up. How many refugees arrive in Indonesia every year, and what percentage try to make it to Australia from there? How many refugees have turned up in South East Asian countries since Tony "stopped the boats"? These are the questions that need to be asked, and I'm sure the answers are out there.

[stui magpie]

Why do they need to be asked?

It should be pretty bloody clear finally that the pull factors seriously outweighed the push factors in choosing Australia as a destination.

There's only one reason why "refugees" chose to go to Indonesia, because it was a place to get on a boat to Australia. With that Pull factor gone, refugees who have means to escape from their country will make another choice. The ones without the financial means to get to Indonesia will do exactly what they've been doing.

There's a metric fuckload of displaced people who have bugger all except the clothes on their backs waiting in UN resettlement camps to go somewhere. These are the ones who need help and placement.

[David]

Back at Labor HQ, Shorten has won on turnbacks:

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/25/bill-shorten-wins-freedom-to-use-boat-turnbacks-but-leadership-split-on-issue

I think this is the most telling quote in the article:

[stui magpie]