Foxy,

SM reckons - "This is yet another successful boat turn around..."

End of story.....

"Whatever it takes" - "By hook or by 'crook'" - possible criminality and getting down and dirty with people smugglers is all in a day's work for the Coalition apparently.

Providing just enough fuel for a boat to be out of sight when it runs out and the on-board panic starts is wonderful stuff, apparently.

Providing no other supplies to the boat that has been set up to drift without power on the high seas is splendid, apparently.

And then in the next breath, SM will regale you of the altruism shown by this the govt in acting to prevent drownings.

I wonder how many boats have been sent packing with minimum fuel and have foundered with no support available - and those on board have succumbed to the depths?

Poirot - "I wonder how many boats have been sent packing with minimum fuel and have foundered with no support available - and those on board have succumbed to the depths?"

ZERO! until to you prove otherwise with absolute certainty.

Paul1405 - Your comments regarding " the nuclear bomb crazy Iranians "

Western countries and Isreal have been claiming they are only a few years away from getting the Atomic bomb trouble is that claim has been made for like 20 years, where is it BS.

CH,

"ZERO! until to you prove otherwise with absolute certainty."

Precisely!

Which kinda sums up the reason for all the secrecy..."operational matters", etc.

You can usually guarantee that some pretty bad stuff is going down, once a govt seeks to cloak transparency.

But ya can't prove it.....which is why it's instituted in the first place.

(Stuff tends to morph into view in the fullness of time though....)

Poirot,

Also in the habit of making stuff up are you?

What's wrong with Australia taking all legal measures to prevent the massacre of women and children?

Also what is wrong with giving the boats returning to Indonesia ample fuel to reach the mainland 20 odd km away, but not enough to get to Aus? Again nothing illegal.

It is interesting that you find the death of 1200 to 2000 people under labor/greens so trivial, and zero deaths at sea under the coalition such a crime.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Plenty is wrong with the actions of the government.
By refusing to deny that his government paid
people smugglers to takeintercepted asylum seekers
back to Indonesia, Mr Abbott has given the green light to
the deadly trade that he supposedly despises.

Just as disturbing are the legal, moral and diplomatic
questions raised by implicit confirmation that the
government has taken its end-justifies-the-means border
protection policy to an, until now, unimagined extreme.

Questions need to be answered. The government is not
above the rule of law.