Hi Hasbwen,

Indonesia is made up of thousands of islands, and tens of millions of people who make their living from fishing, with a bit of people-smuggling on the side, using perhaps a million boats.

Is it the intention to pay cash for those boats ? At half-a million or more each ? WIf you were an Indonesian fisherman, what would you do with that half-million - order two boats to be built, knowing you can pay them both off in a short time ?

What if the boat-owners refuse to sell, and demand an inflated price ? i.e. the Australian government creates a bull-market for fishing boats ?

So let's see - if Mr Morrison buys, let's say, merely ten thousand boats, at half-a-million dollars each - that's five billion dollars.

Five billion would build a lot of new boats. Thank you, Mr Morrison !

Should I go on ?

Joe

It's such a shame that all he is trying to do is fix a problem he did not cause.

It's hard not to think where we would be with this mess, had K Rudd not tried to change our world.

Rehctub,

I am not a Rudd supporter but the boat people pressure is now coming from many different sources and in some cases for different reasons than it was a few years ago.
Rudd and coy have not helped but I feel the situation and resolutions are beyond the capabilities of our Canberra based dreamers.
There will never be a satisfactory solution whilst politics, politicians and egos are part of the mix.

SD

The boats the smugglers are buying are the cheapest available.
They are clapped out hulls after a hard life of fishing and
would be worth next to nothing.

There may be some tricky plan to get rid of the hulks and force
the price so high that the illegals cannot afford the fare.

Anyway, thats the only way I can see it work.

I hear you SD, but shawly a working system would have been easier to tweet, than throwing a working system out and starting again, effectively opening the flood gates.

I personally don't think much of the boat buy back scheme, but it may have some limited value in conjunction with other measures.

The present situation has come about because of Rudd. Typical Labor to implement something without proper consideration. Now it will take harsher measures to stop the illegals from wanting to come here.

OK, lets make it tough. No processing without valid papers, no permanent residence ever, no family reunion ever, set up detention centre on Macquarie Island. No phone or Pc while in detention, reduce quality of food while in detention. No Halal food and introduce pork in meals.

The illegals have to not want to come.

Saw some pics the other day of our customs processing illegals that were musle bound and wearing designer clothes and sunnies, with manicured nails and so on. Didn't look like hardship to me.