come on!
First how many of these wrecks are flagged?
And just how will we go with them blokes?
The Indonesians? if we declare war on them?
Let us not be silly.
If we understand that country too, is suffering from unwanted refugees.
Then stand on our heads to get the brain working.
Say the boats went from here to there, and Indonesia towed them back here?
A county both sides of the house see as vital to our country,s future and we want to smack 300 million people in the mouth.
Am I the only one to notice the thread wrongly spoke about Malaysia, not to worry,, far sillier things are being said here.

If we understand that country too, is suffering from unwanted refugees.
Belly,
No, they don't !

Belly, the phrase "Flagged" does not mean that they are actually flying
a flag. It means that is the nationality of the vessel.
You said;
The Indonesians? if we declare war on them?
Let us not be silly.
---
Now that is silly.

In any case they are crewed by Indonesians.
Indonesia would not complain because they know that they would not
have a leg to stand on.

They certainly would not attack Australia or Australian vessels and
Indonesia would not risk Australia activating the ANZUS treaty.

They could force the boats back out to sea but then that would be a
humanitarian crime as well as a crime against maritime law.

No, they have no choice but to allow entry to returning boats.

Bazz,

I'm curious regarding your idea to have volunteer civilian crews "turning the boats around".

I'm supposing the volunteer civilians would have to board the boats and take control, for that to happen.

Open to an accusation of piracy...do ya think?

Oops a typo, I meant to say Indonesia. Sorry about that.

Towing the boats back is NOT the way to go.

1) It would be a waste of (our) resources ,and
2) It would leaves us open to emotional blackmail/manipulation. Think about it, if we were to tow a boat back to even 100 metres to the Indonesian shore (and we can’t get that close!) and little Ali fell off and drown we would not hear the end of it. The ABC & SBS would run doco-sermons about for decades!

A much better approach would be to thrash out the problems with the Indonesians. Everyone (except the one-eyed advocates ) knows that most asylum scammers of Middle Eastern origin flying in through Indonesian airports, hold up in Indonesian resorts, hire Indonesian boat crew. Surely there is some way we can come to an agreement on this –For God Sake! you can stop a nation from dumping unwanted goods on your shores -- why not illegal immigrants (and I’m not suggesting the Gillard “regional solution” which was a no starter from beginning)

Just as importantly we need to take away our welcoming mat. We have a whole infrastructure ( advocates, second rate academics & associated legal flotsam and jetsam ) that encourages and accommodates the inflow of illegals ( PhilipS point out earlier, judges telling offenders that they are going easy on them since they don’t want to jeopardize their “asylum: claims –WTF!)

And then we have this (joke?): <<[Towing the boats back would leave us] Open to an accusation of piracy...do ya think?>>

The asylum scammers hijack the Viking Princess and camp on it for god knows how long while we feed them –No, no , no dats not piracy.
The asylum scammers force ships who want to take them the nearest ( Indonesian or Singaporean port) to divert to Oz –No, no dats not piracy eaver

But should we talk about crewing the ships back to their point of origin –that’s piracy --what a joke!