Philip, SPQR et al,

Do you have an annual price tag per person for installing asylum seekers in offshore detention camps while little or no "processing" is taking place?

I think you'll find that the costs associated with our foray into sadism dwarfs any costs applying to the accommodation of those already processed in the community.

(That's a bipartisan critique there, boys...just in case you're wondering)

Poirot,

Talking if dwarfing costs--I'll wager the the cost of running the Gillard HMAS taxi service far outweighed anything Abbott currently employs!

Community accommodation is one of those easy sounding lefty panaceas--but it has hidden costs:
--The resulting increased crime and the need to cover it up --since it is not PC to notice it.
--The need to tippy-toe around their special sensativities --since they are offended by many of our values --not least of which is free-speech.
--And, last but far from least practised, the cost in loss of community cohesion and security as a result of them going back home --once their meal ticket has been assured --to fight jihad in Somalia or Syria or Iraq

Still got that math problem, or is it a reasoning problem, Poirot.

The cost of keeping a thousand or so, & diminishing steadily, in off shore detention, is a hell of a lot less than keeping about the 80% of 50,000 a year, that would still be turning up on the end of a navy tow rope, if we still had the disgusting Rudd or Gillard in the lodge.

Thank god for Tony & a bit of sense.

Thank god for tony and a bit of sense. that is your opinion not shared by all Australians.

When has Abbott shown any sense at all. We were taken for a ride at the election with untold amount of lies and the election was a fraud.

The Abbott government is offering Iraqi asylum seekers $6000 to leave Manus Island and Nauru, despite spiralling sectarian violence engulfing the country.

It is also offering voluntary return packages to Syrian asylum seekers to return to the war-torn country, but says the offer has not been taken up by anyone who has arrived without a visa since 2008.

A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said asylum seekers who wanted to return to their country of origin, including war zones, were required to sign a statement stating that they ''understand the current situation in their country of return'

the cost of supporting an asylum seeker in the community on a bridging visa, estimated at an average of $45,000 per year."
Philip S,
I have heard from various sources that cigarettes, condoms etc are supplied to male only detention centres. I suppose because they're mainly adults they'd be getting a fair bit more than the $25/day that indigenous kids get for attending schools plus the adults would also cost more to fly aroung than the four times a year that indigenous kids get flown home for holidays.
I suppose the Government believes that there might be some chance that they'll eventually get some money back from the immigrants once they enter the workforce.
I just wish the Government would give some of our money ( it's not theirs anyway) to deserving pensioners for a change.

The bloody economic brown skins are living it up on welfare as proven by Morrison. Good thing he's stopped these potential terrorists from increasing their numbers here. They live in enclaves, don't assimilate, and often don't even learn English. There's a radical Muslim brown skin even trying to set up a debate that "honour" killings are justifiable.

Keep these Muslim terrorists OUT of Australia. Morrison should just deport them all, just drop them off on some far away desert island and let them bomb each other into oblivion.