Aussies are more likely to riot over an umpire making a bad State of Origin decision than over Abbott or Rudd being dishonest with voters.
But 100 refugees a day arriving in leaky boats may cause some extremists on both sides or politics to agitate for extreme solutions for refugees.
My view is refugees are desperate Do Or Die people who will risk everything to seek a safe haven from vicious regimes at home.
When New South Wales was founded it was a harsh and lonely outpost in which rum provided the only relief for marines, convicts, and free settlers. But so much British currency was being sent to Bengal to buy rum that the British Government sent Captain William Bligh to enforce Prohibition.
Bligh was overthrown in the Rum Rebellion of 1808. So the British Government sent a canny Scot Lachlan Macquarie to NSW as its Governor. Macquarie legalised rum smuggling and taxed it. He converted a huge enforcement cash outflow into a revenue stream that built Sydney Hospital and many other public works.
Hence my proposal for people smuggling: Legalise it and tax it. That will save lives and convert a huge enforcement cash outflow into a revenue stream that is used on one 737 a day to bring 100 refugees to Australia a day, vet them for terror or criminal links and resettle them and run English courses.
Let Lachlan Macquarie's solution prevail. Prohibiting refugees (like prohibiting drugs) puts up the price and makes smuggling more profitable. But legalising people smuggling cuts the cost and provides a revenue stream to the Government, not to foreign criminals.
