Labor to turn back the boats.

[pietillidie]

^For the 28th million time on Nick's, including long posts replete with the relevant data and analyses, that has been debunked as nonsense. The arrivals pretty much match world people movement numbers and bear no serious correlation to anything else.

E.g.,

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/10/19/push-vs-pull-asylum-seeker-numbers-and-statistics/

Not to mention now we have no clue what's going on thanks to the Stasi's information blackout.

[Mugwump]

^ Just read it, with rising eyebrows. And then i pulled this out :

http://www.immigration.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/00CBC69E-AB63-4C2A-876C-6A1BE7AFA2E8/0/refugeeandprotectionstatusstatisticspack.pdf

New Zealand's numbers have been broadly similar between 2005 and 2013, with little year on year variation, while Australia;'s soared between 2011 and 2012/2013. With a population of around 20% of Australia's, in 2012, New Zealand had 324 claims to our 17,000 odd. (btw They accept ca 25% of those compared to the 90% of Australian applicants quoted above).

Oh, and yes, let's "ignore 2002 as an outlier", he says.... we wouldn't want the reaction to Australian government policy, post-Tampa, to skew our results, would we ?

The academic rigour of the blog is probably illustrated by its littered references to "ratbaggery" and "boneheads" etc.

The global data shows that there was a dramatic reduction in asylum claims globally post 2001. This probably reflects the tightening of eligibility restrictions post 9/11, and the increasing awareness of the issue among Western governments, rather than any dramatic reduction in world mayhem in the post-Iraq and Afghanistan era. Correlation is not causation, etc.

None of that denies that push factors play a role. If you look at the Libyan and Syrian arrivals into the EU in the last two years, it's fairly obvious that they will. But attempts to make the case that "it's just about push factors" on the back of this tendentious "analysis", are not credible. You don't need a chi-square to see that Government policy in Australia plays a role in the number of boat arrivals.

[HAL]

Some of them could be though.

[pietillidie]

[HAL]

Some of them could be though.

[Mugwump]

^ Ah, the old PTID playbook - when countered with facts, play the man - shootings, drownings, yes, anyone who takes a different view on your data is clearly in favour of those. Sigh.

[pietillidie]

^I've probably written 5000+ words on topic alone on Nick's and said as much in my first response to you. It's a very ooooooold topic.

And there are no mysterious "facts" that only Gabriel in his wisdom chose reveal to you and no one else five years after the event. As explained, the only extremely rough correlation you might conjure up is one between overall people movements and arrivals.

You don't have anything else to add to that. Simply, neither you nor anyone knows if any policy within any serious ethical bounds would make a bleeding difference.

And, if you go back and read the lengthy debates on Nick's on the matter, you will work out even then it's irrelevant because it's a global issue requiring global solutions, not something to disgracefully seek to dump on impoverished neighbours. Hence my comments yesterday on what Shorten needs to do to deal with things both respectably and effectively: Put forward global solutions along with the EU and many others which themselves face the very same problem.

Even worse, both Howard and Abbott, with cowardly ALP governments behind them, helped create swathes of those very refugees with their dumb, interfering, blundering wars.

As if dumping the problem on impoverished developing neighbours and defying global treaties is a decent solution; they've had well over a decade now to pull something global together, but instead the selfish bastards have used the issue as a political football, inciting the regressive forces of fear and racism in the process.

[Mugwump]

^ ok, I can respond to that. The transmission mechanism between the supply of asylum places via Aust govt policy and the demand for voyages seems to me hypothetically probable, and blindingly obvious in the data. But as we both know, the meaning of a pattern in data depends on what one might wish to believe.

As to the need for global solutions, I can well agree with that. But if anyone can really make inroaids into those, we cannot as Australia. So, given that these problems exist, there are limits on how many asylum seekers we should take if we want to preserve our society's cohesion and stability. That's a choice, of course, that I prioritise as a Conservative more highly than some of the more idealistic Left might. Regadless, assuming one accepts a limit, the question them becomes why one would prefer boat arrivals to the many other deserving cases, buttressing the business model of the people smugglers by doing so.

Anyway, as you said, it's an old topic, and there are better things to do on a Saturday night than rehash old topics. A pint of ESB and dinner awaits me, and i hope one does you as well.

[pietillidie]

[Mugwump]

^ No, Haven't tried the Sainsury's Kentish - £1.25 for half a litre is good value. Some of the Kentish ales (eg Spitfire) are a bit hoppy for my taste, but many are excellent. I'll give it a go if I can find it at my local Sainsbury's, and report back. Meanwhile, you shoudl try to locate some Samuel Smith's Yorkshire stout. It's mind-bendingly vegemitingly cheek-sucking gorgeous. Go Pies for tomorrow !

[Tannin]

[HAL]

No I didn't read what you wrote yet. Tell me about what you wrote

[David]

^ Yes, I'm aware of TPVs. But the fact remains that, however cruel Howard and Rudd's detention policies were, there was still a basic guiding principle that genuine refugees would be accepted, if only temporarily.

While I hate these offshore concentration camps and would prefer efficient community processing, at least then there was still a fundamental distinction being made between refugees and what you describe as 'economic migrants'.

That's a distinction I accept. I'm not such a starry-eyed refugee advocate that I think everyone should just be let in. But what happened to it? When did genuine refugees become criminals, only fit to be kept behind barbed wire?

As PTID points out, we could have saved so much time, money and human suffering by devoting our energy to a regional solution (and no, I'm not talking about the Malaysian proposal). As it stands, we've trampled all over our relationship with Indonesia - and with it, any chance for positive collaboration in the short-term.

[Tannin]

[David]