The boats are heading for Xmas Island, not the mainland, because JWH built a 100 million dollar reception centre for them there. Simple.
No, actually the reason the boats head for Christmas Island is that it is only 360km south of Jakarta, and is the closest piece of land where there claim asylum in Australia. Why travel a further 2600km to get to the WA shoreline?
Howard tried to initiate legislation excluding these outer islands from the asylum claim zone but it was deemed illegal (fair enough).
