Parrot,

No matter how you try and wiggle and squirm, no one from the coalition has claimed that turning the boats back is anything more than one of a suite of measures, let alone the topic of towing boats back.

Last week one boat arrived, compared to the daily arrivals under Labor. All this without towing back a single boat. The TPVs, the 48 hr turn around to Nauru and Manus, etc seem to be doing the job.

You know the school yard bully is emerging Poirot.
The child like insults flow.

Dear Poirot,

The facts remain that our new Prime Minister has now
toned down his strident stand on towing the boats back.
He's stand in Opposition is now different in Government.
And the language has changed to ditching the towback
policy as recent articles in papers like The Sydney
Morning Herald show:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/pms-boats-compromise-offers-a-way-to-ditch-towback-policy-20131001-2uqs1.html

Foxy, Belly,

Yes, he's rather fond of "toning down" the rhetoric when he's put on the spot.

I hear he's spent his recent hours apologising to the Malaysian leader for the Coalition's attacks a few years ago.

so...the upshot is...

Oh, nearly forgot.

Abbott attends the APEC meeting and the BBC report this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24439974

Great start, Tone.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“Law of the Sea”) preserves freedom over the high seas.

Article 87 provides that the high seas are open to all states, thereby preserving freedom of navigation on the high seas. Article 89 states that no State may subject any part of the high seas to its sovereignty.

Article 90, says that all States have the right to sail ships on the high seas. States are prohibited from exerting control over the vessels of other States on the high seas except over a select number of illegal activities, including piracy, slave trade, illicit traffic in narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances, and unauthorized broadcasting, and grants states the right to intervene in such activities.

Under the UN charter, asylum seekers employing a service to deliver them to Australia is a right that cannot be impeded because it does not fall within the definition of illegal activity under international law.

Are the Australian Navy's secret "operational matters" to do with Australia breaking international law by interdicting asylum seekers on the high seas?

Furthermore, Article 51 of the UN Charter states:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take, at any time, such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Is Australia under hostile attack? Is peace being breached? If we believe so, are we abiding by Article 51?

On the high seas, we cannot tow/force boats in any direction that is not of their choosing, only once they enter Australian waters, and cannot tow/force them away if asylum is then claimed under the UN refugee convention.

Poirot: "I hear he's spent his recent hours apologising to the Malaysian leader for the Coalition's attacks a few years ago."

Yes, outrageous! The drownings since then have been a result of the LNP putting politics ahead of lives. I have opened a thread on this that I hope will be accepted by GY.