Round 42 in the never ending war against ratbaggery brings us to the argument of what drives asylum seeker numbers – push factors vs. pull factors.
Proponents of the push factor view claim that the numbers of people attempting to enter Australia to seek refugee status – including those that arrive by boat – are primarily driven by events outside of Australia’s direct control. They argue that events like war, political unrest and other causes of human displacement and general misery around the world create a supply of asylum seekers that spread throughout the globe seeking sanctuary and a better life, and that the numbers coming to Australia are primarily a function of these events rather than domestic Australian policy.
The Pull Factor school of thought on the other hand claims that it is primarily Australian domestic policy responses that define the number of people seeking asylum in Australia. They argue that there is always a large supply of those seeking asylum around the world, and that marginal changes in Australian domestic policy lead to large changes in the proportion of that global pool that will choose to seek asylum in Australia rather than alternative destinations. The Pull Factor school ultimately argues that marginal changes in the deterrence level of Australian policy is the difference between pushing asylum seekers away to be someone else’s problem, or pulling them toward Australia to become our problem.
Fortuitously, we have a handy little natural experiment available to test the broad accuracy of the Pull Factor school. Firstly, Australia and New Zealand exist in the same part of the world, meaning that we would expect to experience the same regional dynamics when it comes to localised asylum seeker numbers. Secondly, we are both relatively desirable destinations with a western orientation and free from any internal political persecution of minorities. Thirdly, and most importantly, over the last 15 years or so Australian and New Zealand border protection policy became sharply divergent. From the end of 2001 Australia implemented the Pacific Solution while New Zealand policy has remained fairly consistent over the entire period.
If the Pull Factor school of thought was accurate – if pull factors really do dominate asylum seeker numbers – then we would expect to see very little correlation in total asylum seeker application numbers between Australia and New Zealand – afterall, our respective policies are different and during the Pacific Solution period were vastly different.
If we take the total asylum seeker application numbers for both Australia and New Zealand over the period of 1994-2008, we can run a scatter plot and regression line to see if there is any correlation.
This tells us that those carping on about Pull Factors as being the dominant effect, are engaging in a few pull factors of their own. The Australian and New Zealand experiences are highly correlated in a very strong statistically significant way. This is the exact opposite of what would occur were our respective domestic policies the dominant influence on our respective asylum seeker numbers.
Something else is driving our numbers together – giving us this high correlation.
We don’t have good numbers for total global asylum seeker applications, but we do have good data on the following 38 developed and borderline developed nations: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Rep, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Rep. of Korea, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States
If we compare the combined Australia and New Zealand numbers against this global 38 group, we get:
Again, a strong correlation. Not as strong as that between New Zealand and Australia which share the same regional dynamics, but strong none-the-less, suggesting that even regional differences get swamped by larger trends in global asylum seeker supply numbers.
Those folks promoting “Pull Factors” as being the dominant influence of total asylum seeker numbers are, quite simply, wrong.
Where it does become more complicated however is if we ignore total asylum seeker numbers and just look at those asylum seekers arriving by boat. Yet, by doing so, we are effectively ignoring the majority of asylum seeker claims in Australia – sometimes ignoring nearly all asylum seekers in Australia. If we look at just the total amount of people arriving by boat each year as a proportion of total Australian asylum seeker applications, it tells a complicated story:
The years 1999 to 2001 saw the dreaded ‘boat people’ make up a relatively high proportion of our total asylum seeker numbers– but it’s also worth noting at this point that those three years make up 3 of the top 4 years in total asylum application numbers in our collection of 38 nations.
When those proponents of “Pull Factors” that are slightly more nuanced in their approach (more nuanced than, say, boneheads like Sharman Stone and Andrew Bolt for example) limit their argument to just “boat people” – they are still left arguing at best about a minority of asylum seekers, at worst about virtually none. However, they do have some evidence backing their argument – although evidence of high uncertainty.
If we rank the years 1994 to 2008 by numbers of ‘boat people’ arriving in Australia from lowest to highest (so the lowest year gets a score of 1, while the year with the highest number gets a score of 15), and do the same for total global asylum application numbers from our 38 nations (1 being the year with the lowest number and 15 being the year with the highest number) – we can compare the relative strength of boat people arrivals in Australia with the relative strength of broader global asylum seeker trends. When we run a scatter and regression with the two sets of ranks, we find ourselves with an interesting outlier.
If we ignore the 2002 result as an outlier and use the other 14 years to build our regression line, it tracks well – suggesting that the relative patterns through time of boat arrivals in Australia, is itself a function of broader global asylum seeker trends. The reason 2002 is an outlier (and also a dodgy stat that we’ll get to in a tick) comes from it being the starting point of the Pacific Solution – the year when 1 billion dollars worth of forward expenditure began to be implemented. It did reduce numbers – by redefining parts of Australia as not actually being Australia. Any boat people that happened to land were conveniently excluded from the statistics by an act of definition.
Let’s be clear – this is what the Pacific Solution did – it diddled the stats by redefinition. Boats still made the attempt to enter Australia – which is a point worth noting as many of the proponents of Pull Factors cite reducing the risk of death from reducing the number of people attempting the voyage by boat, as one of their key rationales. Yet we know that SIEV(s) 5,7,11 and 12 in 2002 attempted to make the journey and were returned to Indonesia while SIEV(s) 4,6 and 10 actually sank. That was in very late 2001 through late 2002. In 2003 we know that boats were still attempting to make the voyage such as SIEV 14, but were again towed back from whence they came.
The UNHCR estimates that 1600 people were diverted throughout the time of the Pacific Solution, but hard numbers are difficult to come by.
What that figure doesn’t take into account are the numbers that attempted the voyage but were turned back – nor those that sank or were suspected of being lost at sea.
If we adjust the 2002 number to account for boats that not only attempted to make the voyage, but ended up detained within the Pacific Solution system using the numbers provided by the Select Committee for an inquiry into a certain maritime incident 2002, we can add 1546 to the 2002 number. Redoing the same chart as above now gives us:
Which paints a somewhat different picture.
So while the more nuanced argument of Pull Factors – that they reduce the number of boats attempting to make the voyage – may have some force of weight on paper as evidenced by the statistics of boat arrivals following the Pacific Solution, it still relies on a set of very dubious numbers by ignoring the reality of voyages still being undertaken, but conveniently redefined as somebody else’s problem. While Pull Factors most likely have some relatively small effect on boat numbers, they are simply swamped – overwhelmingly swamped – by Push Factors.
UPDATE:
Just a quick update – I forgot to put links in for where the actual data came. For asylum seeker application numbers you can go here and here at the UNHCR, while the boat arrival data came from the parliamentary library here.
90 Comments
Pages: « 1 [2] Show All
Excellent, Scott. Thanks for setting out the numbers for us; I’ve been waiting for an exploration of the facts like this.
Isn’t it amazing how, in the face of repeated explanations to the contrary, some people will just run the same line again and again and again to score a political point.
If only Kevin Rudd could explain this to everyone on national TV; something tells me it wouldn’t fit into the 3 minute slot allocated for political news on the 6 o’clock news.
“If this was the case we would see a difference in figures for New Zealand. We also wouldn’t see such a relationship between boat people and asylum seekers internationally.”
What 1000% increase in Asylum Seekers have we been seeing internationally?
RE comment 44 from James, I’d like to explain why TPVs were not only ineffective as a deterrent but contributed to a growth in asylum seeker numbers – its unclear from my letter published in the Australian, which was edited.
Generally, the wives and children of men who had permanent protection visas waited in the Middle East until their applications to come to Australia were processed.
TPV holders were not allowed to access family reunion programs, that is, they couldn’t apply for their families to join them.
Their wives and children were desperate to reunite with their menfolk, and the only way was to use smugglers. So what happened was that ever-increasing numbers of women and children made their way to Indonesia and got on smugglers’ boats. By disallowing family reunion, the effect of TPVs was to create a new market for people smugglers.
A few of the men I spoke with told their wives not to make the journey as it was too dangerous but their wives insisted.
Possum, your analyses are really interesting.
“A few of the men I spoke with told their wives not to make the journey as it was too dangerous but their wives insisted.”
Did you ask them why they didn’t fly directly into Sydney Airport rather than burning their identification and coming via boat?
Another good question is, why didn’t they just stay in Indonesia.. have they not fled persecution?
TruthHurts (such a noble, long-suffering nom de plume for such a dimwittd tool) was peddling that “1000% increase” line over at Poll Bludger a couple of days ago.
Looking at the figures “1000%” would mean an increase, in the past year or so, from about 180 boat people to 1800 boat people. 10 times. Get it? 1000%.
I pointed out that TruthHurts could have been even more dramatic if he’d compared the numbers from 2002 (1 boat person) to today (1800 boat people). That’s an 180,000% increase in 7 years. Much spiffier numbers. Altogether more compelling. You can write it out to make it even scarier: ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THOUSAND PER CENT!!!!!
The point is that when you use percentages you need to set out your frame of reference. 1800 boat people is still a trifling amount compared to other means of aslyum-seeking entry into Australia, and a microscopic amount compared to the rest of the world, even given our relative population. And a very small amount in absolute terms.
The second point is that TruthHurts disappeared off Poll Bludger when his stupidity and either (at best) lamentable or (probably) dishonest use of comparitive numbers was demonstrated. So now he’s come over here to peddle his manic hatreds. At least he’s NOT SHOUTING AT EVERYONE LIKE HE DID OVER THERE.
Apart from that, Possum, he’s all yours.
“Looking at the figures “1000%” would mean an increase, in the past year or so, from about 180 boat people to 1800 boat people. 10 times. Get it? 1000%.”
The reason why I used percentages is very simple.
I have seen Labor politicians on Q&A and other programs peddling a report from the U.N saying there has been a 20% increase in asylum seekers worldwide and this is the reason for the surge since August 2008.
Now I have crunched the figures, and did the numbers and found that the increase of boatpeople is nowhere near the 20% claim, but in the range of 1000%+. Bit outside the margin of error I think you would agree.
But lets go back to 2001 shall we. In 2001 we had 5500 boatpeople. The PAcific Solution was introduced near the end of 2001. The following year? 1 Boatperson.
Now thats a 99.9% reduction. Does Labor have a U.N report showing a 99.9% reduction in Asylum Seeker applications in 2002? Of course not.
I do believe that means I have successfully disproved not once, but twice, the claim that Australia’s boatpeople arrivals is most affected by “global issues”. It has become clear to me and any unbiased observers that domestic policy, that being Australian law and Government policy has the biggest impact on the number of boatpeople arrivals.
One should never feed the trolls. It only encourages them. You can never get them to admit their mistakes, misrepresentations and outright lies. Even after their bs is utterly debunked, they will still continue to spout it. You only have to look at this thread to see this in action.
Rather than call me a troll over and over again, why not dispute any of my facts?
I’ve made no mistakes, have backed up all my opinions with government data and have simply asked the question on why there has been a 1000% increase in boatpeople since August 2008 and a 99.9% decrease after the implementation of the Pacific Solution in 2001.
These are very straight forward questions and rather than playing the man perhaps you should play the ball. Balls in your court.
I think that TTH has picked his particular hobby horse and is going to flog it until it drops.
I havent seen posts from anyone that say that Australian Govt policy has NO effect on numbers of asylum seekers. But the debate here and more generaly is what is the main driver? From my reading of Poss’s posting and charts i’d agree that the “pull factors” arent the main drivers as the correlations between Australian and International asylum applications being so strong.
TTH, i dont think you have proved anything. You seem to be limiting yourself to only looking at the “pull factors” and not even aknowledging that “push factors” exist.
The reason that I get so annoyed at attitudes like yours is that I believe it demeans us all when our Govt demonises a particular, very vulnerable group of people, and treats them in a way that would really frighten me if i was in a similar situation. Howard and his ilk did that. They whipped up hysteria and tapped into something dark in Australia. Whether they did it just to stay in power, or because they themselves were frightened, who cares? It was still fundemenatly wrong.
Pseudo reasoned potitions like the one you have taken on this matter just feed that and encourage tosspots like Turnbull and his rabble to peddle more hysteria and fear. The current govt are doing better. I hope they do better still.
TheTruthHurts went:
No, 1 person is incorrect. In As of Sep 2002, there were 1495 people *processed* under the Pacific Solution that arrived by boat that year. The government just defined them as “Not Boat People” because they didn’t *land* in Australia, even though they made it to Australian waters, even though were processed by Australian government employees using Australian regulations and paid for by the Australian taxpayer, and even though a large number of them ended up back in Australia anyway as refugees.
Boats didn’t stop coming – they just stopped being defined as boats.
Truther – I suggest that this isn’t the blog for you if are unwilling to follow the data.
GIVE us a break! The way this lot are carrying on, mostly Howard rejects I would say, you would think we were flooded by refuge , or as Pauline Hanson would say swamped by Asians. Get a life you lot! How will ye lot handle it when we have a major terrorist attack on Australian soil? I will be knocking on Howard’s door, this is the man who plunged Australia into the Iraq war at the behest of his war buddy Bush, with the question,’ Please Explain’! As for Afghanistan, the Taliban there are making a come-back. The war on terrorism, is a myth, as it should be.
Barry 09! Like you, we have 10 boats here in Lake Macquaire,been anchored here for the past week, with 5000 refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq on board, they tell me they are fleeing from the Yankee terrorists who invaded those Muslim lands. The ships came through the Swansea heads unseen, and even had the Swansea bridge opened,to let them through, to Lake Macquaire.
“…they tell me they are fleeing from the Yankee terrorists who invaded those Muslim lands.”
What else do ‘they’ tell you, Rick? Do they whisper sweet nothings and tell you to load your gun?
Also, how did 5000 refugees get through unseen, yet still get the bridge opened? Are the bridge operators in the habit of opening it for invisible boats? And if the refugees were invisible, why did they go to, of all places, Lake Macquarie. Maybe because it felt like home? I’d be heading to Port Douglas myself.
Truth, I don’t want to call you a troll but I do want to know this. You keep calling asylum seekers ‘illegal’. Do you agree with the High Court of Australia when they say that such a description (they use the term unlawful)is ‘nugatory’? That is they haven’t broken any law and are therefore not illegal. In the words of the High Court “The use of the term “unlawful” does not as such refer to abreach of a law.”
I simply don’t understand why the term illegal continues to be used. n the interests of an informed debate, can you please tell me which law these people have broken?
Sue Hoffman, thank you for explaining the TPV effect. I tried to ask you about that in the half-a*sed letters-comments section of the Oz, but they only seem to approve comments about twice a day and I think they filter them to depict a “balance” of opinions, even if that balance doesn’t exist in reality. Their editing of your letter, turning it into a puzzle, is also typical.
So the key point about TPVs was the forced separation of families. As I recall, a TPV also meant that if a refugee left Australia briefly to visit his family somewhere he would lose the TPV and have nowhere to go. This, from the party that called itself the bastion of family values.
Regarding TTH. I take the view that if blogs are seen as a contest, sometimes it’s a contest to win the hearts and minds of silent audiences (in the hope they might be many voters and/or include someone influential); at other times its a contest in which he who learns the most wins. This particular blog is probably the latter kind. TTH is giving a clear exhibition of inability to assimilate information and would be best advised to travel a bit. Not just to Bali and Disneyland, but somewhere where he is pretty much forced to interact with people who look funny and talk funny. He might then learn to listen as well as talk, and to talk with nine parts knowledge to one part opinion instead of the other way round. His popularity could increase dramatically as a result.
And that is all I have got to say to or about TTH. One more post from him that does not show genuine effort to analyse the data presented by Possum, or the additional and very valuable insight from Sue’s research (which isn’t going to happen), and I’m switching off.
DrMick! The point of my fable is how silly the media push this boat people hysteria, still we had the children overboard saga, and Tampa which won Howard a Federal election—-the old tactic–the fridge magnet, be alert not alarmed—you don’t want these type of people as neighbours, as he stirred the racist pot.
I’ve graphed the refugee applications (from the UNHCR data) for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Indonesia, and Worldwide.
Refugee Applications: 1996 – 2009
I’ve included the Boat Arrivals data both from the parliamentary library report (same data TTH used), and from the Department of Immigration annual reports. The latter are by financial rather than calendar year, but have the advantage of listing boat arrivals that were diverted to Narau / PNG or returned to Indonesia. Each of these sets of figures is plotted with respect to the average over that period. The 2009 figure for boat arrivals is taken from a recent newspaper article.
First a comment on TTH’s graph. Choosing 1999 as the starting point conveniently hides the fact that the spike from 1999-2001 is a marked increase from the previous decade – an increase which can’t be explained by Australian immigration policy.
Including the would-be arrivals by boat to Australia diverted by the “Pacific Solution” shows that the effect of this draconian policy was nowhere near as clear cut as implied.
If the PS was effectively limiting “pull” factor, I would expect an increase in refugee applicants to NZ or Indonesia. No such effect. In fact, applications follow the global trend.
Given the upwards trend in worldwide refugee applications (to higher than 1999-2001 levels), it’s unsurprising that we see an increase now.
Interesting work Possum. Peter Martin has quoted your analysis:
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2009/10/asylum-seeker-push-vs-asylum-seeker.html
Truth Hurts has been canned – further questions in his direction would be a little futile since he can’t answer back.
No one takes him seriously anyway. He wants his own facts as well as his own opinions.
I’ve been looking for comparison figures on World War 2 refugees. Anyone know a good source of data? Hard to compare apples to apples of course because most of the definitions etc came about later, but still worth a try.
The reason I’m wondering about that is, a lot of anti-refugee commentators are asking the question “how many”, intending it rhetorically. But the scale of WW2 as a humanitarian crisis dwarfs anything else in history, showing that the current scale of the refugee problem is not, in fact, uncharted territory. Australian government figures show post-war immigration peaked at 102,000 in 1950, and we know anecdotally that quite a few of these were persons displaced by the war. Estimates include a possible 60 million WW2 and civil war refugees in China.
This is clever enough that it should go viral…or at least viral for geeks : – )
Seriously, I am linking to it and sending emails left and right, it’s an intelligent look at an issue that is not often marked by that.
http://www.archives.gov/research/ww2/refugees.html
Might be some stuff buried here James
Another interesting way to look at all the data in the post, which strangely just dawned on me, is in terms of stated (often vicariously) vs. revealed preference.
Although people might often *say* they are or will come to Australia based on a change of laws, or that other people (read the sensationalist end of media and politics) might say that is what those other people will do or plan to do (the stated preference) – when you look at what people *actually* do via the data (the revealed preference), things turn out a little differently.
As a side note to the problems with the pull factor debate, it is worth briefly noting some of the data on qualifications of asylum seekers. From research I was previously involved in, it became evident that many asylum seekers are tertiary educated. Not all, but a decent proportion (from memory at least a quarter of our sample which was in the order of 300 asylum seekers for one of the studies). Reflecting on the interviews from the study, the data showed most of those with tertiary qualifications felt they had little chance in using their, often considerable, skills and experience (I distinctly remember the group of 5 general practitioners in the sample). The whole economic migrant argument seems to rely upon the assumption that just arriving in Australia is ‘moving up’ for many asylum seekers. What I remember our data showing reasonably clearly was that unless you had a genuine reason to leave (ie persecution) then many were better off not leaving and they knew it. Anyway, just a side note to this excellent analysis of push and pull factors.
GenericCitizen, that’s very interesting because of the political angle about refugees being costly. As the government is well aware, every time we import an educated or skilled person, that’s an expensive brain-drain for the country of origin, and a freeby that Australia gets without having to put them through university, school, childcare, and all the other expenses of rearing workers from childhood and waiting decades for the return on investment. We know that the government is well aware of this; it’s the main driver for high immigration levels in recent years (well, that and maintaining demand pressure on property prices).
That all sounds a bit cold I know, but it just means that the government is being disingenuous when it lets the “where are we going to put them all” argument pass without pointing out the fallacy. Personally, I welcome goat-herders just as much as doctors.
Possum, maybe there’s a further distortion between intentions and actions: How many of them go nowhere except the bottom of the ocean? When one of these rustbuckets with very little in the way of communication capsizes out to sea, how often does a Tampa just happen to turn up? How many SIEV Xs have there been? Also we haven’t heard anything in the media about pirates robbing boat people, but the parents of the Vietnamese kids I grew up with often reported that pirates had taken what little they brought on the voyage (but usually left them alive after robbing them). It makes you wonder about those who like to compare the smuggler route to a first-class air fare.
it’s great to see some stats to put canberra’s spin into some sort of perspective. it would be interesting to compare figures with migrants from english-speaking countries as a proportion.
perhaps, TTH was giving the devil’s advocate voice ?
james — personally, I would prefer more goat herders than more GPs — they’re probably cleaner as studies have indicated, and they certainly have more useable life knowledge.
one has to wonder how the ‘push’ and ‘push’ relates to longer term outcomes — certainly warrants further research, to establish a positive approach for individual migrant families.
in a wider sense, I think the federal government ought to underscore their whole immigration policy with media — the international ABC network for example. it’s a terrific platform to inform potential migrants / refugees about Australia, it’s cultural values and how best to work with our immigration system.
Anyone calling themselves TheTrtuthHurts would HAVE to be a fan of John Howard. (He never hurts them).
In homage to the “honest” character of his idol he says he “voted Labor” at the last election! (imitation being the sincerest form of flattery).
As a corollary of being canned from the blog for trolling, he can no longer reply to anything we say about him, so it probably wouldn’t be fair to talk about him now.
Regardless of “push” factors its clear even from the data provided that arrivals by SIEVs declined significantly in numbers and as a proportion of total asylum seekers.
It is a no brainer that if you remove deterrants to arriving illegally by boat as the Rudd Govt has done that more people will take up the opportunity to travel in this manner.
All the Rudd Govt has done is virtually provide the people smugglers with their very own ’stimulus’ package in my opinion. The numbers are starting to speak for themselves and trying to deny it with spin about ‘push’ factors will wear thin before long.
Possum, whether or not you think the figures were “fudged” as you infer because boats were turned back, diverted excluded from migration zones etc by Howard policies that is not the issue. The issue is one of border protection and if (and your own sources seem to confirm) that as a proportion of the total, Howard’s policies were successful in reducing the number of SIEs arriving by boat and now that they have been relaxed there is an undeniable spike in arrivals by that method.
Bard,
For the sake of argument let’s assume that people smugglers and their passengers are undesirable and that deterring them is necessary. (Actually I don’t agree with those but I’ll take that up elsewhere). It remains to decide what methods of deterrence are ethically acceptable.
For an analog, I’ve been reading some interesting legal and psychiatric arguments in response to se-xual predator detention laws in the US. A Kansas statute a few years ago, aimed particularly at child mol-esters, enabling preventive quarantine of se-xually dangerous offenders after the completion of their sentence, received great accolades in the media and survived a Supreme Court constitutional challenge backed by the psychiatric association and civil libertarians.
It’s not that they don’t want to save children – they do, but not at the expense of eroding civil rights against abuses like arbitrary detention for social engineering purposes, which in the long run threaten not just children or offenders but everybody. What they found is that the Supreme Court had opened a crack in constitutional rights and though it may not happen this year or in this generation, a step has been taken down a road to a place where no one is safe.
Now look at the methods we’ve used to deter boat people and smuggling:
1. The Labor government in 1992 introduces mandatory detention of unauthorized arrivals to facilitate security and control of the assessment process, with a nin-month time limit.
2. The Labor government (in 1996?) introduces the practice of including irregular refugee intakes in an annual refugee quota, placing boat people and those from the so-called “queue” into competition for places.
3. The Liberal government abolishes the time limit for detention and expands detention facilities. Stories emerge of unaccompanied children growing up in prison-like conditions, suffering se-xual abuse, and of many detainees developing mental illnesses due to long periods in these conditions.
(Keep in mind, despite popular talk of “illegals”, the government never actually accused these people of any offence; the purpose of detention was openly stated to be for sending a message to prospective “queue jumpers”, not to punish for any crime or to facilitate processing.)
4. Temporary Protection Visas are introduced as the maximum benefit attainable for most refugee applicants, specifically denying access to any government assistance including English and job training, preventing access to the TPV-holder’s family outside Australia without losing the TPV, and requiring the holder to re-apply every three years. Again, the only purpose was deterrence of others. TPVs were abolished because they failed; the separation of families caused a surge of wives and children getting on boats to try to rejoin their husbands.
5. Federal police and other Australian security agencies cooperating with Indonesia in a series of operations to interfere with people-smuggling operations are accused of complicity in the sinking of SIEV X and drowning of all persons on board.
So let’s assume that deterrence is desirable. But how many fundamental human rights do you want to sell down the river for purposes of effecting that deterrence? Because sooner or later you may find yourself calling on those same human rights principles for your own defence in an unrelated matter.
Notwithstanding the fact that very small number of datum used in the scatter diagrams results in poor reliability, even after the 2002 figure is fudged the correlation of the scatter diagrams is poor and in fact support the argument that it is local policy, not international events, that led to the recent increases in boat people. What a surprise that the only people swallowing the nonsense posted on this blog are the left wing sheepies.
Actually worker, if local factors were the sole cause there wouldn’t be any correlation at all over time, and despite the relatively small number of observations it is still statistically significant once the size of n is taken into account. That is a position that this week that even the Liberal party acknowledged.
You will notice, if you care to look, that 2009 isn’t in the set (simply because the year has not yet ended). What we do know from history – a period of time where policy had changed fairly significantly – is that the correlation was consistent.
To suggest that somehow, what is happening now is substantially different compared to what happened before and during the Pacific Solution period (even though the increase in numbers today is expected on the basis of historical observation) will require more than just your say so before I believe a word of it.
Local factors matter – but they get swamped by international events. I have yet to see a single piece of data that suggests otherwise.
The apparent corellation between Rudd government policy (which is still almost identical to the Howard policy) and increased number of arrivals does not ipso facto demonstrate causation.
Simple prima facie corellations such as this are usually erroneous.
In just the same way as the appearance of a comet in 1066 did not have any corellation to the outcome of the Battle of Hastings.
Actually possum, as I stated before the correlation of the scatter diagrams is poor and cannot be relied on. You are right – it does not suggest push factors predominate, but it is outrageous to suggest that with such a weak correlation and small sample that any conclusion can be drawn about pull factors either.
Just overheard in senate QT – ALP senator (didn’t catch who), referring to graphs of Afghan refugees headed for Europe and those headed for Australia as being mirror images. He intended to say the trend lines were identical, but what he actually said implies that they were divergent and in fact the inverse of each other, which negates his argument and only supports the assertion put by Sen. Fierravanti-Wells.
Pages: « 1 [2] Show All