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[Max White]

Sure hope you guys have no need for internet...

[Reelya]

A boatload of asylum seekers sails into a busy WA port completely unchallenged

Seems our border security's really a bit of a joke. Perhaps we should spend more on our military budget for the navy? Oh wait, we had this conversation already, didn't we?

More navy budget is barely going to cover the border. Our coastline covers 19,650 kilometers. There's no sensible way to ensure no boats pass through. Well, we could build 200 patrol boats, and assign each one to 100 kilometres of coast i guess.

[Reudh]

A boatload of asylum seekers sails into a busy WA port completely unchallenged

Seems our border security's really a bit of a joke. Perhaps we should spend more on our military budget for the navy? Oh wait, we had this conversation already, didn't we?

More navy budget is barely going to cover the border. Our coastline covers 19,650 kilometers. There's no sensible way to ensure no boats pass through.

Aye, I'd have to agree here.

[Sheb]

Covering harbors should be entirely possible though.

[Reelya]

That's a job for the state governments. You don't need navy frigates for policing harbors any more than you need the SAS to patrol city streets for crime.

When John Howard stopped just one boat with a naval vessel, before the 2001 elections (97% of the several 100 people in the boat checked out as legitimate refugees, so there were a grand total of maybe 10 people sent back to their home countries) it cost several million dollars a day, for weeks, to perform the operation. Yeah, but it "paid for itself" because the party got re-elected.

They're called 'unlawful non-citizens' by definition of the Migration Act. Seeking asylum is a lawful act when granted a visa. Entering the country without visa is not. Detention centers exist to separate the two.

That's just not correct: "Seeking asylum is a lawful act when granted a visa." is just wrong. Seeking asylum is a right of any person who enters a country. Entering a country, no matter how you do it, and seeking asylum are two different things. You're not meant to enter the country unannounced, but once here, you have a legal right to seek asylum. This is the sole reason John Howard started shipping people off to Nauru. As soon as they step on Australian soil, they have the right under Australian Law to seek asylum, and have the claim properly processed.

Also, nobody is charged with a crime for entering Australia's territory, are they? Crimes are defined as things you have to go to court for. Things a judge presides over. Since there is no crime defined in the books for this, they're not criminals. Technically. But ... "criminal" is 100% defined by the technicalities., not "I find that 'criminal' ". It's not a crime - according to the law - which is the sole arbiter of what is a "crime" in the first place.

[Sheb]

Right. I'm not sure why we were talking about the Navy. Don't you guys have a Coast Guard?

[Reelya]

That's mainly handled by the Australian state governments. Western Australia's coastline is just monstrously large, though, and there's really not that many people living there.

[Max White]

Right. I'm not sure why we were talking about the Navy. Don't you guys have a Coast Guard?

Nope.

[Descan]

Wait, how is a means test a good thing?

I thought y'all were trying to -save- money...

[Dutchling]

All politics thread deserve a PTW.

Even one as silly as this one~

[Reelya]

Wait, how is a means test a good thing?

I thought y'all were trying to -save- money...

A means test is all about saving money. It's taking something that's given to everyone, and adding an income threshold above which the service is denied.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_test

[Max White]

Except this is Australia, meaning that you also need to include your parents income until the age of 22 (Is it still 22? I heard rumors of 25) because by that point they are meant to be supporting you... Old enough to vote, own a company, star in pornography and go to jail, but not old enough to be an adult. 

[Descan]

And then adding the bureacracy and appeals process and investigations process and, and, and... Adding more cost than it's worth.

MAYBE it works for something relatively expensive like healthcare, but even that I'm skeptical.

[Jimmy]

It's your standard bureaucratic tactic. Layer a service which costs money in red tape and paperwork to reduce casual interest in applying by potential recipients, and deny applications which fail to meet the arbitrary standards or incorrectly complete the application. Seriously, anyone here ever filled in a typical Centrelink document? Those things are a pain.

Similar policies exist and are applied regularly in health care all the time. There's plenty of expensive drugs, for example Enbrel, that work extremely well for diseases like rheumatoid arthritis with very few side effects compared to existing treatments like the old chemotherapy drug methotrexate. Trouble is that a single dose of Enbrel costs about $1,000 compared to $10 for a few months treatment of methotrexate. So access is restricted to only a select few candidates that jump through a long and torturous series of hoops to get prescribed the drug. Would it be better for most people with the disease to have access to the expensive stuff first? Sure. Unfortunately it's not possible because we simply couldn't afford it.

[Descan]

And there's also plenty of cheap drugs that work just as well as the really expensive stuff, whether the cheap stuff is old-expensive stuff that's gone generic, or the new stuff that's got a tiny change in it just to revigorate the patent and keep the money train coming, but because the expensive stuff is like 1% more effective they either feel the need, or are legally obliged, to give it to you without discussing the lower-cost drugs for fear of lawsuits.