"I find it incredible that while we bicker amongst ourselves about who has the best policy, nothing is being done to improve the situation."

The UNHCR asks the same question of Australia and its neighbours, expecting a regional solution.

Greens will shift position only in the direction of facilitating safer boat journeys encouraging asylum seekers to journey here to blend into the community while their applications are positively assessed.

The onshore and offshore components of Australia’s refugee program are numerically linked, meaning every time an onshore applicant is granted a protection visa, a place is deducted from the offshore program. Greens want this to cease thereby making the overall intake limitless but the major parties will not support this radical line.

Hence we're stuck in a default position which is a long way down the path of Greens policy and the boats increasingly come.

So it appears to remain until the next election where moderate Australians who saw no harm in voting Green will see the error of it and vote accordingly, giving one major party the absolute majority it needs to effect a solution.