http://www.smh.com.au/national/dozens-feared-dead-as-packed-asylum-boat-capsizes-off-christmas-island-20120622-20rnz.html

As more women and children die we are left with too many questions:

Could the government prevented this?
What have they done to try?
What solutions are available now?

Kevin Kruddy Rudd is responsible for this!

This incident set a bad precedent the boats were in Indonesian waters and they are coordinating the rescue but the people are being bought to Australia. The Government is accepting people who are clearly Indonesia's responsibility, so much for trying to stop them now they are going out of there way to bring them here. This is going to cost many millions of dollars.

My thought exactly Phillip S.

As they were in the Indonesian zone, they should have been transported to Indonesia.

Then they would not only have not been in Oz, but their presence there, returning from a marine tragedy, just may have stopped a few from making the voyage themselves.

I'm going to say 'no' - we are not responsible, and our government could not have prevented it. Sure, there are undoubtedly measures that could have been taken to stop the flow of boats to Australia, but that would simply relocate the tragedy rather than prevent it.

Asylum seekers, like other migrants, are motivated by a combination of push and pull factors. The push factors prompt them to pack up and leave their homes; the pull factors merely dictate the destination. Had our government made Australia a less palatable destination, they would have diminished the pull factor, but the push factor would remain. The asylum seekers would have gone SOMEWHERE - either by boat or by land - and they would have taken a risk to get there. They might have drowned, they might have died of exposure, they might have been shot by vigilante border patrols (as happens to Zimbabweans trying to sneak through Boer country into the more hospitable parts of South Africa) or they may have suffered another grisly fate. Or they may have made it to their destination alive.

So, in short, the quality of life that we enjoy may well prompt people to want to join us, even at risk of extended mandatory detention and psychological damage. Short of diminishing that quality of life or drawing further international criticism for our allegedly 'inhumane' treatment of asylum seekers, we can't do much to make ourselves less attractive. And asylum seekers will still seek asylum somewhere, safely or otherwise.

Yes agreed, Philip and Hasbeen.