Gee Marilyn, you had the perfect opportunity to add a bit of substance to our debate by way of showing some agreement, or otherwise, with me on the points that I asked you directly about (twice).

It seems that you are entirely loathe to indicate any points of agreement. If you have read the exchanges between Bronwyn and myself on this thread, I’m sure you have found a fair bit of common ground. And I’m sure there is plenty that you don’t agree with me about, that you could seek more information on or probe away at.

But instead, you have just virtually repeated your last post (the bit addressed to me at least).

“Ludwig, there simply was not a huge influx ever.”

Correct. But that doesn’t mean that the rate of influx couldn’t have greatly increased. Marilyn, can you assert that the rate of influx was not considerably increasing at the time of the Tampa, and that there were not strong indications that it was about to increase to a very much higher level?

Can you assert that if Australia welcomed asylum seekers / refugees with open arms and a policy of no detention, that we wouldn't quickly have very considerable numbers to deal with?

At any rate, if you think that it would have remained at very low numbers, why are you hung up on it? If it really is so insignificant in terms of overall refugee movement, why do you so strongly support it and so intensely dislike those who wish to see it stopped and have our refugee efforts channelled through other avenues?

Incidentally, I haven’t gone bush yet because I have problems with my car.

Hello Bronwyn and Marilyn

I'm back from a wonderful few days knocking around the scrub in Moorrinya National Park.

Shall we continue our discussion?