"Boat people from Wogistan on the port bow, Sir"

“The idea that people could be seeking asylum by the boatload was beyond imagination”
Damned right! But the criminals in Indonesia and others en-route there have seen an opportunity to make bucket loads up front.

Load the pre-paid hordes onto a leaky boat, barely clear the 12 mile limit and knock a hole in the bilge. Scream Mayday, the good old RAN cavalry has to respond in a timely fashion (it’s a global maritime thing) and thus will rescue them at zero cost.

Anyway, the skippers will get a slap with a wet bus ticket, shipped home at zero cost, having being well paid to scuttle their rickety boats.

Meanwhile the illegal hordes now do their bit, screaming asylum and Oz ships them off to NZ. Now via the hellhole of Nauru instead of the mainland camps. Also, the tossers like Key are talking of escorting illegals across the ditch. You’ve gotta be joking!

And unfortunately, we await them them with open arms because of our soft-cock immigration policies. The illegals should be taken from the RAN ship straight to an airport with a one-way ticket home, never to return.

Mr Key better have that return to sender policy in place and well proven when the first boatload of 500 plus illegals turns up screaming Mayday off our West Coast as the bilge plug is pulled. The results might not be pretty if they try it in a south westerly, but it will be sure to get greenies and other hand wringers fired up.

A comment I've just made over at the money printers blog.