Maqqa wrote on Mar 26
th, 2013 at 9:23am:
There are 10 years worth of data supporting my view
How does my personal understanding of the intricate detail of a policy change the 10 years of data?
Labor failed!!
You have 10 years of data in which you can make an association. Thats it. Association does not equal causation - that is a logical fallacy. I'm afraid simply saying "the boats stopped during the PS. I don't know what the PS was, but it seemed to work" - doesn't really cut the mustard. As I said you are just falling into the dangerous trap of making an association into a cause.
What is the pacific solution? Easy - offshore processing + TPVs. Is there any reason to assume that this stops the boats? No. In fact one of the two components we know does the opposite. There is no reason to think that offshore processing stops the boats either - in fact they increase under Gillard - despite the added punitive "no advantage" measure.
What we do know is that the boats stopped when the navy used terrorism on the high seas to threaten asylum seekers, and then tow them back. You just need to apply a bit of common sense here: people so desperate for asylum are not going to be deterred by the prospect of having their claims assessed in Nauru instead of Baxter. The important thing for them is the fact that their claims will be assessed, and there will be a high probability of it being successful. On the other hand, when asylum seekers perceive that their claims will never be assessed to begin with, and they will be towed back to Indonesia with great risk to their own lives - that is likely to deter them.
You can say its a technical point - since either way Howard stopped the boats. The point is important however. You don't see Abbott and the libs saying "bring back terrorism on the high seas" as the solution - that would look bad. Instead they say "pick up the phone to Nauru - and all will be fixed". So Gillard did exactly that - and lo and behold the boats kept coming. So the libs then changed to "but but.. you also need to bring back TPVs! Nauru won't work without TPVs!" Except the problem with that is there is no reason or evidence to believe that Nauru + TPVs will work. In fact the record speaks for itself: TPVs increased the boats under Howard, and Nauru increased boats under Gillard.