In an additional policy release on Asylum Seekers on part of the policy offer was a $20M boat buyback scheme for Indonesia.
This policy appear to have some flaws given that almost 750,000 fishing boats make up the current fleet in Indonesia.
The first is the buy-back budget’s size.
The second hand and used boat market could be flooded reducing the price for people smugglers as everybody seeks to get a slice of Aussie gold.
Then again an underpinning buyer, which Australia would be, could see the price go up, attracting boats from other countries to become registered in Indonesia in the hope of dumping them on the Australian government or selling them to people smugglers.
Like Victoria happily taking the Coal Seam Gas Exploration Licence Fees for Gippsland so Indonesian maritime authorities could be accepting flag of convenience registration for the fees paid.
Expecting a regulatory limitation on the size of the Indonesian fishing fleet is extraordinary with the temptation that stalks all governments, a bucket of money.
Let’s look at the $20M against a fleet where boats may be retired after 30 years of service. That’s 25,000 boats on the market. To scoop up the lot its $800 per boat. Didn’t the Coalition think that 100 passengers at $25,000 each might allow for a slightly higher bid for an old boat.
We will see 0.05% of the people smugglers income from the above scenario would outbid the Australian offer.
It will take about one minute after the election for an Abbott government for every savvy fisherman to know this is a scheme for scamming, just like the logging machinery buyback under the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.
And it won’t take much longer for local and other officials to see the possibilities too.
What happens to the purchased boats?.
Are they burnt, sunk as an artificial reef or sold for scrap? Who will pay to supervise that?. Does that lessen the money available for buybacks?
Will the boats have to come to a central market or will they be bought online. Will Australian buyers travel or just wait in the popular asylum seeker departure ports.
Just for the sake of it some figures. 25,000 ten metre long boats put end to end stretch 250k or just under a third of the way from Java to Christmas Island. 750,000 boats of those boats averaging 4m wide would make a 36m wide floating bridge all the way.
An old party Government may stem the flow with its policies but as if it at the same time reduced the refugee intake as Abbott proposes he is only increasing the pressure in Indonesia as asylum seekers make their way to safety.
Rudd’s policy at least promises a move to the Houston inquiry recommendation by increasing the refugee intake to 27,000.
However, Abbott and Rudd as they govern for the moment ensure the growth of a much greater pressure forcing the movement of people seeking refuge.
A recent study has shown that as food scarcity forces up the global price of staple foods social unrest rises. It peaked in 2008 with the collapse of the Tunisian government and then the Libyan, that we saw on the news
These were not the only countries with unrest putting many people on the asylum seeker path.
In 2011 food prices went up and we have Egypt and Syria still boiling and seething.
The coming year should see another round as the climate related reduction in grain
yields in Russia and the long drought in the United States affecting the corn harvest force prices up.
India is under similar pressure as climate instability has reduced the onion harvest. Onions are a staple for Indians on lower incomes and they number in the hundreds of millions. Combined with a high inflation rate the world’s largest democracy will see changes.
For us in the west who may spend 20% of our income on food understanding this is not easy. When 80% of your income goes on food it is different. The attraction of places where food appears cheap and abundant spikes.
So if Abbott wants to stop the boats he will immediately increase his CO2 emission reduction target from 5 to 25%.
If it is good enough to be elected and then claim surprise about the state of the treasury and adjust policies accordingly then the same applies to the climate emergency.
Of course, I don’t expect that to happen.
What I expect is that the inevitable events caused by the loss of a dependable climate will gradually dawn on a majority, government will take more and more action to reduce emissions.
Australia may, as the cruel country denying refuge in a future spiralling into a very turbulentpoverty stricken world, may find the pressure on its borders generating a new society; ultra conservative, xenophobic, intolerant and greedy, knowingly made by its own hand as it continues its Carbon addiction.
The current climate instability is the result of CO2 released 30 to 40 years ago, about 335ppm. Some scientists flag 350ppm as a ‘safe’ maximum. Today we are at 400ppm.
In looking at the impacts of the current degree of climate instability you may ask will it get worse?.
Oh yes, much worse.
