As for treating border security as a different ‘issue’ to immigration, this approach is typical of a government that strives to over-simplify matters that obviusly connect and compound in their ramifications. If border security is so poor that reaching Australian territorial waters merely involves a RAN ship meeting the SIEV and escorting it to some relatively salubrious and comfortable camp, it won’t be long before hundreds of thousands of economic refugees set sail in their own boats. They will cut out the middle men, the wicked people smugglers, and flood en masse to the Australian coast.

Besides, there is no certainty that many boat people have managed to reach the Australian shore undetected. If Gillard discounts a few thousand detected migrants, she may be as blase about another 20,000 or so that pierced the net. Of course, she would have to feign horrified shock if half a dozen of them died in the inland desert. She would need all her lame spin doctoring skills to find a scapegoat. But of course Tony would help Julia with the spinning.