Gillard & the Australian government directly responsible for the tragic drownings off Java

Media release by the Human Rights Alliance Australia owns significant responsibility for yesterday’s tragic sinking of another asylum boat off Java and of the many drownings. Australia should assist in repatriation, counselling and compensation of and for the survivors. The boat was carrying Hazara and Irani refugees. Ms Gillard's push for Indonesia to criminalise those assisting asylum seekers in the passage to our shores is directly responsibly for this sinking and drowning, and for people's desperation.

Neither Indonesia and Australia should be criminalising the seeking of asylum and people should be allowed to map out their journey openly, to travel with various public assistance and in seaworthy boats. The Gillard government has manifest the desperation that gives rise to unseaworthy boats and passage under the cover of the clandestine.
Related:Refugee Action Collective(Vic)Press Release -- Refugee Action Coalition (Sydney)Statement

If asylum seekers and those assisting in their passage were able to work with various public authorities and agencies to ensure their boats are seaworthy then there would not be these horrific tragedies, however they cannot contact public
authorities and agencies because the Gillard government has pushed Indonesia to criminalise these peoples.

It is one year since the Christmas Island tragedy, which Australia is likewise directly responsible for with its discriminatory, racist and unlawful policies and practices to our asylum seekers and to those who try to assist them.

Australia's legal and moral obligations are to assist our asylum seekers and not to give rise to their suffering, harm and death.

Gerry Georgatos
Human Rights Alliance

0430 657 309
gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au

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What a load of bullshit they have tried every thing to stop the boats, and the fuckwitts keep coming to jump the ques making people who have gone down the correct channels wait longer

What a cruel society that elects and cheers on politicians who do this and the ongoing crimes against Aborigines.

James Hathaway wrote, "Many would agree with the assessment of former Australian prime
minister Kevin Rudd, who famously called human smugglers the “absolute scum of the Earth,”
saying they should be left to “rot in hell.” This is a simplistic view, which should be rejected.

Traffickers and 'people smugglers' are being mixed up - A smuggler
is simply someone who assists another to cross a border without
official permission. The transaction is consensual, reflecting a
decision on the part of the refugee that the short-term hell of
life onboard a container ship is better than the risk of being
persecuted at home. While human smuggling is perhaps normally
to be opposed — borders do matter, and laws are laws — it should
also be recognized that human smugglers play a critical role in
assisting refugees to reach safety. Please read:

http://oppenheimer.mcgill.ca/Why-human-smuggling-is-vital

Recent news story
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/12397106/migrant-boat-sinks-o...

Some of the issues covered and apparent in this Indymedia article
http://www.indymedia.org.au/2011/11/27/australia-shatters-its-party-on-t...

Free the Indonesian children from Australian prisons - end the hypocrisy - October 1, 2011.
Sun 16 Oct 2011
By Gerry Georgatos

Hypocrisy never ceases to amaze and often serves to highlight immoral predicaments.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is concerned about the rights of a 14 year old Australian child who was arrested by entrapment for possession of marijuana in Bali. The child is not in an Indonesian adult prison however he is in custody and within the appropriate jurisdiction. I feel for him however he has a journey before the Indonesian Childrens Court.

During July I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard about the thereabouts 100 Indonesian children languishing in Australian adult prisons. They range in age from 13 to 17 years. It has been a long and arduous journey to have some of them released - some have been released via court proceedings and some by behind the scenes efforts. I contacted Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and he promised he would assist. He has not. When I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and as we held hands throughout the conversation, her warm smile froze to a worried silence in presuming another scandal-in-waiting.

Australia is yet to ensure appropriate age-determination protocols and adequate consular notifications so these children, some of the world's most impoverished children, do not finish up in adult jurisdictions with murderers, sex offenders and hardened criminals. How is it Minister Rudd is concerned about the plight of a 14 year old Australian who is before the appropriate jurisdictions in Indonesia and yet he is not concerned about 100 Indonesian children in Australian adult prisons?

The mantra of "breaking the people smugglers' model business model" has caused much damage and perceptually modified public views. Is "people smuggling" a reality or is it a myth, and is the assisting in the passage of an asylum seeker immoral and criminal?

I was stunned when a GetUP! campaign against the Malaysian option quoted, "it's understandable that the Minister cannot offer a blanket exemption to any class of asylum seekers, for fear that people smugglers will exploit it to their advantage." There are many Asylum Seekers who cannot find safe passage from persecution and oppression without the assistance of others.

I do not question that there maybe some who have profiteered in assisting asylum seekers, however is this a crime? Migration agents get paid for their services. Who doesn't? Let us remind ourselves that much of what is paid to so-called people smugglers is also spent on ensuring their safe passage.

If Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Minister Chris Bowen want to break what they perceive as the people smugglers business model they should listen to the Director of Refugee and Asylum Law at the University of Michigan, James Hathaway, "Canada and other developed countries created the market on which smugglers depend by erecting migration walls around their territories. The more difficult it is to get across a border to safety on one's own, the more sensible it is to hire a smuggler to navigate the barriers to entry. Smugglers are thus the critical bridge to get at-risk people to safety. Which one of us, if confronted with a desperate need to flee but facing seemingly impossible barriers, would not seek out a smuggler to assist us?"

Perceived people smugglers are actually people who save lives and if we could remove ourselves from the racism and xenophobia we would appreciate them and their brave daring as we do Oskar Schindler and Nancy Wake.

Humanity has a history of heroes who have smuggled people to safety and to destinations throughout the world where human advancement can prosper. 250,000 Hungarians were assisted by 'agents' to flee the Stalinist persecutions following the 1956 revolt. Oskar Schindler took monies to pay monies to help thousands of individuals to freedom. Recent tributes revered the life of Australian Nancy Wake, a 'people smuggler' who during German occupied Europe saved many lives.

Many people smugglers were asylum seekers and refugees and they understand the predicament of their peoples. Iraqi Ali Jenabi's brother was killed by Saddam Hussein's forces. He arrived in Indonesia penniless and to earn passage for his family to Australia, and which included his mother, sisters, brothers and an uncle he worked for perceived people smugglers. His family finally arrived in 3 separate boats.

Ali Jenabi's humanity continued and he has since helped many others seek passage, including those with no money. He is a hero to the Iraqi communities of Australia however a perceived people smuggler to Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He could face ten years jail whereas Oskar Schindler and Nancy Wake have received every tribute.

Australia's misrepresentation of those who assist asylum seekers in their safe passage and their labelling as people smugglers has now caught up young children, who were no more than cooks and deckhands on the boats lawfully seeking asylum to our shores. There are now over 400 of Indonesia's impoverished fisherpeople serving five year sentences in Australian prisons. Many of them are children. There are hundreds more waiting on remand and others in immigration detention.

The method used to determine the age of the children, the wrist-bone age scan, has been widely discredited by paediatric endocrinologists and by the Australian Medical Association, and is unlawful in the UK as a means to determine age, however the Australian government continues to rely on it.

Lawyer, David Manne set a precedent by challenging the Australian Government in the High Court over the lawfulness of the Malaysia option. At this time in the Victorian Courts, and what may finish up in the High Court, lawyers are arguing that asylum seekers have a legal right to come to Australia and that perceived people smugglers in fact have a legal right to assist them, and in fact they have never done anything unlawful. Indeed paragraphs 232 and 233 of the Migration Act support this argument. A few years ago 27 legal experts explained to a Senate Estimates Inquiry that indeed there is nothing unlawful in assisting people with safe passage to foreign shores. The incarceration of people as 'people smugglers' is unlawful, and the incarceration of Indonesian youth and children as 'cooks and deckhands' is a human rights abuse.

If the Victorian Courts uphold the arguments that there is no such thing as people smuggling per se in regards to the 'business model' then this will have a wide reaching implication and may expedite the freedom of many. Australia would be best served by working with those humanitarians who risk their lives trying to help others to our shores, and by pulling down the migration walls and by raising our humanitarian quota for refugees to for instance 50,000 and set an example world-wide.

Gerry Georgatos - 0430 657 309
gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au

This is so wrong it is unbelievable. No-one is forced to climb onto a leaky boat. There was a lot of merit in Gillard's malaysia solution. To blame her personally for the death of these people is simply irresponsible, it doesn't help, it doesn't fix the dire straights these people are in. What will happen if the Government sends warships to pick up desperate refugees? That seems to be the outcome you would like. What would happen is the government would be thrown out. Not everyone in Australia wants to welcome thousands of thousands of people unasked for into this country. When you speak for the majority you will have something to say. Blaming Gillard and her government is just plain stupid. Gillard wanted to open Australia up to 4,000 people currently in no mans land in Malaysia. No one stood with them. You can not have a carte blanche open door policy. The people of Australia will refuse that. The day you get majority support for that I will welcome it with you. But you do not have it. By blaming the labor Government you simply ensure Abbott will win the next election. And we all know what Abbott's policy is. Offer a solution that is acceptable to the majority of Australians instead of simply laying the blame at the feet of Julia Gillard. Shame on you.

And no, I do not say that the Malaysia solution is the best solution, or that off shore processing is desirable. If you think that you have misread me. But open slather is the fast track to a change of government and the types of foreign policy that will tear the heart and soul out of caring Australians.

End the hypocrisy

By Gerry Georgatos

Hypocrisy never ceases to amaze and often serves to highlight immoral predicaments.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd was concerned about the rights of a 14 year old Australian child who was arrested by entrapment for possession of marijuana in Bali. The child was not in an Indonesian adult prison however he was in custody and within the appropriate jurisdiction. I feel for him however he had a journey before the Indonesian Children's Court.

During July I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard about the thereabouts 100 Indonesian children languishing in Australian adult prisons. They range in age from 13 to 17 years. It has been a long and arduous journey to have some of them released - some have been released via court proceedings and some by behind the scenes efforts. I contacted Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and he promised he would assist. He has not. When I spoke to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and as we held hands throughout the conversation, her warm smile froze to a worried silence in presuming another scandal-in-waiting.

Australia is yet to ensure appropriate age-determination protocols and adequate consular notifications so these children, some of the world's most impoverished children, do not finish up in adult jurisdictions with murderers, sex offenders and hardened criminals. How is it Minister Rudd is concerned about the plight of a 14 year old Australian who is before the appropriate jurisdictions in Indonesia and yet he is not concerned about 100 Indonesian children in Australian adult prisons?

As a result of ordinary people campaigning the house down for justice, the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has presented cases for review to the Commonwealth Attorney-General, and the AHRC has initiated a National Review. As a result of the same ordinary citizens Australian Greens Senators have finally asked our questions about these children in the Senate Estimates and as a result a Senate Standing Committee is taking submissions so as to amend legislation to protect children. As a result of our campaigning, 36 children have been released from prisons this year and 69 all up.

The mantra of "breaking the people smugglers' model business model" has caused much damage and perceptually modified public views. Is "people smuggling" a reality or is it a myth, and is the assisting in the passage of an asylum seeker immoral and criminal?

I was stunned when a GetUP! campaign against the Malaysian option quoted, "it's understandable that the Minister cannot offer a blanket exemption to any class of asylum seekers, for fear that people smugglers will exploit it to their advantage." There are many Asylum Seekers who cannot find safe passage from persecution and oppression without the assistance of others.

I do not question that there maybe some who have profiteered in assisting asylum seekers, however is this a crime? Migration agents get paid for their services. Who doesn't? Let us remind ourselves that much of what is paid to so-called people smugglers is also spent on ensuring their safe passage.

If Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Minister Chris Bowen want to break what they perceive as the people smugglers business model they should listen to the Director of Refugee and Asylum Law at the University of Michigan, James Hathaway, "Canada and other developed countries created the market on which smugglers depend by erecting migration walls around their territories. The more difficult it is to get across a border to safety on one's own, the more sensible it is to hire a smuggler to navigate the barriers to entry. Smugglers are thus the critical bridge to get at-risk people to safety. Which one of us, if confronted with a desperate need to flee but facing seemingly impossible barriers, would not seek out a smuggler to assist us?"

Perceived people smugglers are actually people who save lives and if we could remove ourselves from the racism and xenophobia we would appreciate them and their brave daring as we do Oskar Schindler and Nancy Wake.

Humanity has a history of heroes who have smuggled people to safety and to destinations throughout the world where human advancement can prosper. 250,000 Hungarians were assisted by 'agents' to flee the Stalinist persecutions following the 1956 revolt. Oskar Schindler took monies to pay monies to help thousands of individuals to freedom. Recent tributes revered the life of Australian Nancy Wake, a 'people smuggler' who during German occupied Europe saved many lives.

People smugglers should not be mixed up with traffickers in human labour or in slavery. If the migration walls are brought down then people smugglers, or organisers, can be allowed to better do their job, which to many of them is a calling, and openly be able to work with public authorities and agencies as to ensure the sea worthiness of a boat. If this humanity is understood we would not have had the SIEVX where 353 drowned, 146 children, 142 women and 65 men. We would not have had the Christmas Island tragedy where at least 50 drowned, and the many others in between these two tragedies and since, and the tragedies that will surely come - as I can sadly guarantee that hundreds more will drown, and when once again it is as numerous, in human lives, a tragedy as the SIEVX only then will people once again discuss the issues, the migration walls, the inhumanity.

Many people smugglers were asylum seekers and refugees and they understand the predicament of their peoples. Iraqi Ali Jenabi's brother was killed by Saddam Hussein's forces. He arrived in Indonesia penniless and to earn passage for his family to Australia, and which included his mother, sisters, brothers and an uncle he worked for perceived people smugglers. His family finally arrived in 3 separate boats.

Ali Jenabi's humanity continued and he has since helped many others seek passage, including those with no money. He is a hero to the Iraqi communities of Australia however a perceived people smuggler to Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He could face ten years jail whereas Oskar Schindler and Nancy Wake have received every tribute.

Australia's misrepresentation of those who assist asylum seekers in their safe passage and their labelling as people smugglers has now caught up young children, who were no more than cooks and deckhands on the boats lawfully seeking asylum to our shores. There are now over 400 of Indonesia's impoverished fisherpeople serving five year sentences in Australian prisons. Many of them are children. There are hundreds more waiting on remand and others in immigration detention.

The method used to determine the age of the children, the wrist-bone age scan, has been widely discredited by paediatric endocrinologists and by the Australian Medical Association, and is unlawful in the UK as a means to determine age, however the Australian government continues to rely on it.

Lawyer, David Manne set a precedent by challenging the Australian Government in the High Court over the lawfulness of the Malaysia option. At this time in the Victorian Courts, and what may finish up in the High Court, lawyers are arguing that asylum seekers have a legal right to come to Australia and that perceived people smugglers in fact have a legal right to assist them, and in fact they have never done anything unlawful. Indeed paragraphs 232 and 233 of the Migration Act support this argument. A few years ago 27 legal experts explained to a Senate Estimates Inquiry that indeed there is nothing unlawful in assisting people with safe passage to foreign shores. The incarceration of people as 'people smugglers' is unlawful, and the incarceration of Indonesian youth and children as 'cooks and deckhands' is a human rights abuse.

If the Victorian Courts uphold the arguments that there is no such thing as people smuggling per se in regards to the 'business model' then this will have a wide reaching implication and may expedite the freedom of many. Australia would be best served by working with those humanitarians who risk their lives trying to help others to our shores, and by pulling down the migration walls and by raising our humanitarian quota for refugees to for instance 50,000 and set an example world-wide.

To the heroic and feted "people smugglers" I add those who, sometimes for payment, sometimes for nothing, helped people to escape from communist East Germany. Several films have heroized them. Several received high official commendations.

In Australia the politicians' "outrage" is disgustingly and so obviously phony. It's not about concern over refugee safety, it's not about concern over national security, it is plainly and simply dumbing down to the lowest vote-catching xenophobia.

As an Aboriginal mate of mine puts it: White Australians cannot deal with otherness.

By our involvement in other governments' wars Australian soldiers are helping to create the refugees that other Australians torture for years behind barbed wire.

I couldn't vomit as much as I need to.

All pretty sad and I agree the Gillards, the Abbotts and even the Greens when they talk down people smugglers are directly responsible

listen to today's rhetoric by Jason Clare, Home Affairs minister, it's racist

You may as well blame the Australian public, and all the news reports, if you want to blame anyone, because everything Labor does is damned in advance by the right wing press, Labor would have walked into government in 2001 if not for Tampa, the press and the right wing ideologues of the Liberal persuasion ensured that the race card would be played and it effectively resulted in twelve years of liberal rule, if that is what you want then welcome to it, but I will side with labor every single day of the week over that, which is not so say that I agree with everything they do or say, or think that there is not a lot more that they could be doing, but undermining Labor is only doing the conservative's job for them. They don't need Rupert Murdoch when they've got you guys on Indymedia.

Labor apologist, what your beloved party does to refugees and Aborigines is beyond the pale. It panders to the basest instincts of Australian voters.

What good do you see them doing on anything? Whatever you might trot out, it doesn't outweigh their monstrous behaviour on those issues.

Or maybe you contend that they're the lesser of two evils?

I'd rather fight the real (Liberal) scum than the mealy-mouthed incompetents pretending to be decent (Labour).

However we vote, we'll get Libor or Laberal. This voting system will keep us locked into that. It is meant to prevent change.

We aint got no choice, mate.

And to accuse IndyMedia of doing Murdoch's work is simply ludicrous and insulting. Someone desparate lashing out blindly.

HRA media release: All three major political parties caused the drownings off Java - and more

Moral leadership is not being represented by any political party or its leaders.

None are prepared to lead that far from the front that the others behind them can leverage solutions. Instead they are on par with each other and merely casting blame and aspersion and portraying themselves as being able to do the job better.

Ministers Bowen and Clare, Minister Morrison and Senator Bob Brown are all speaking very much alike and none of them is effecting any difference, or any leadership that can leverage any real and significant ways forwards.

The four of them have attacked the organisers of the boats for our Asylum Seekers as 'people smugglers' and have convoluted their practices and assistance as 'trafficking'. These people are not traffickers of indentured human labour or slavery or of illegal immigrants - they are assisting in the passage of Asylum Seekers, which according to International Conventions is lawful and humanitarian.

It is these misrepresentations by Ministers Bowen, Clare, Morrison and Senator Brown, and by Prime Minister Gillard, Foreign Minister Rudd and the Coalition's leader Tony Abbott which has directly led to people drowning at sea.

Migration walls need to be dismantled. People should not have to work in clandestine ways to seek Asylum. People Smugglers should be seen as humanitarians, and they should not be criminalised which if so will allow them the freedom to ensure sea worthy boats and to liaise with various public agencies. And Australia should work regionally and with a moral leadership to raise refugee resettlement numbers in regional nations with a high social wealth and human development index.

Australia has a capacity for 50,000 refugees resettled each year, and without impact on its social wealth - and for more than this number.

Australia has a capacity to develop points of contact in Indonesia and other regional locations with our Asylum Seekers to best assist them and in conditions that are humane. However political leadership, leading far from where we are at this time, is requisite.

The boats will stop in this event - they come because they are denied expeditious assistance - if this changes and if conditions in interim locations are developed then our Asylum Seekers will wait and work with those that care about them.

The only other way to stop the boats is to do what John Howard did and cruelly turn them back and let people languish in dire and abject conditions. They fled persecution, and they fled adverse conditions, most have families they care about, of course many will risk the high seas when there is no humanity on tap, and instead they seek to find themselves face to face with us so we look into their eyes and into their pain.

Our days our numbered, we need not waste them with sickly parochialism, self regard, inhumanity. Our politicians need to scrub up and get their act together - yes they are directly responsible for sinking boats, for drownings, for self harms, mental breakdowns and suicides in detention centres.

Political heavyweights must lead from the front in the very least, and for those, such as the Greens who once claimed to care about humanity at all costs, they need to lead far from the front, and not become like those they once argued against and who asked us for our goodwill to get them into government.

Those who assist in the passage of Asylum Seekers are not criminals. However Australia's political leadership is criminal.

Gerry Georgatos
Convenor, Human Rights Alliance
humanrightsalliance.org
0430 657 309

The tit for tat between Labor and Liberals is sickening
and the Greens have joined in with the bullshit
Who will meet with you and letters back and forwards just stupid
Okay Labor if the Liberals want a proposal in writing then write the
damn thing and if they don't meet then they will look stupid as they are
and lose the votes they think they have in the bag
all this is just self and childish
Anthony

"These people are not traffickers of indentured human labour or slavery or of illegal immigrants - they are assisting in the passage of Asylum Seekers, which according to International Conventions is lawful and humanitarian." Is that true? Is that why they have hundreds of people on overcrowded unseaworthy boats? Because they are driven by humanitarian ideals? When you use arguments like these you amaze me. In what way is risking the lives of these people responsible? They are making enough money to do it humanely, to do it safely, but they choose to use broken down vessels and to overcrowd them to the max out of GREED, NOT humanitarian principles. You just make yourself look ridiculous for saying anything to the contrary.

Noel they have to get what they can in respect to boats. If they didn't have to this behind everyones back then maybe they could openly hire or buy better boats. The refugees are so desperate they are getting on boats they know are overcrowded so they can get to a hell of better life even though they know the risks.

I googled around and found this between Gerry and Matt Taylor exactly a year ago!

Stop the boats

21/Dec/2010

Matt Taylor, Willagee

Comments: 1 reader has left a comment

DURING the recent Federal election campaign when I was the Liberal candidate for Fremantle; Labor, the Greens and the local “independent” paper heavily criticised our priority policy to “stop the boats” that carry asylum seekers to Australia.

My non-rhetorical question seeking a public response from all three is that now that your previously perceived moral high ground has been destroyed by the predictable reality of this devastating incident (not to mention all previous innocent boat-related deaths not caught on camera), do you now believe stopping the boats is the right policy morally or is the sustained loss of many lives still acceptable to you?

And please don’t be so disrespectful as to hide no answer within a deflective, false argument claiming political opportunism.

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What everyone else is thinking
Gerry Georgatos

31/12/2010

The reason 'boats stopped coming' under John Howard was because he instructed the Australian Navy to turn them back, in the spirit of Abbott's "we'll tow them back out to sea". In the preceding three months prior to Howard's Pacific Solution, 13 boats arrived, however after the Pacific Solution, in the next three months 14 boats that had left for Australia were turned back by the Australian Navy. It is not the Pacific Solution, which was just a detention centre on Nauru, that 'stopped' boats it was the inhumane policy to turn them back - people drowned on the return trips of up to another two weeks at sea - this is what happened, what sort of policy is this, other than inhumane, other than cruelty, other than selfishness? There are 42 million people displaced in our world, 16 million of them refugees, with only half of them cared by UNHCR, the rest have no help, no queues, so what else can they do other than risk all? Australia's record is disgusting. Kindly, Gerry.

yes, and the Liberal Party still has the policy to "turn back the boats," and I hear people here saying they would prefer to have Liberal government because then we would "know who the enemy is." Life is cruel under a Liberal government, they do turn back the boats, they do have racist members, they do not care for refugees or conventions. I have said that I would have an open refugee policy, if it was me making decisions. But I am not in power. And the media portrays each boat as an offence against Australia. As long as the papers talk this trash, as long as the shock jocks stir up angst int he community, as long as racism is allowed to prosper in Australia, you will not have this open policy on refugees.

It is in that set of circumstances that you must formulate a policy. It is no good having pipe dreams. I would love for Labor to advocate an open policy, but that would ruin their chances of election, even if they have little hope for that. Abbott WILL turn back the boats. Labor's policy of accepting 4,000 refugees in no man's land in Malaysia is much better, even if it leaves a lot to be desired. We all get hung up about sending 800 refugees to Malaysia, but really, that is nothing, it is so little it doesn't matter, perhaps we can encourage labour to take 8,000 or 16,000 of these refugees stuck in camps in Malaysia, who has no refugee policy. That is what I would strive for, rather than pie in the sky stuff that WILL NOT HAPPEN IN MY LIFETIME. This country is a country full of rednecks, can you imagine them (our fellow Australians) finding an open door policy acceptable WHILST Murdoch runs the presses and the shock jocks rule the airways? I would take the Malaysia solution and work on it t make it better and more effective for settling legitimate refugees (I mean the ones already assessed in Malaysia - I realise most if not all refugees are legitimate) in Australia. Certainly we need to settle more refugees. The Malaysia solution actually delivers this, and can be made to deliver more. Much better than advocating the election of Tony Abbott and "turning back the boats."

It is Robert Manne not David Manne but suppose it doesn't matter!

Now we have a tug of war about nothing obsessing the media about whether the pollies will speak about a solution that is not a solution!