Exclusive: Govt responsible for SIEV-X

John Butler of the John Butler Trio takes a step back from his series on Capitalism and Freedom, to discuss asylum seekers.

If you move the time widget to about 54 minutes over here you will get a heated debate between Peter Costello and David Marr about the SIEVX - the boat full of approximately 350 asylum seekers that sank off Java in 2001.

This incident was not only a tragic loss of life, it dashed the hopes of those on board who had dreamed of the slushy machines and, ultimately, of suing the Australian government for mistreatment when they arrived.

The SIEV X has become a fixation for fruitloops who believe that the likes of John Howard and Peter Costello were responsible for its sinking.

To fully understand how absurd this is, you need to consult a map. No-one knows for sure where the SIEV-X sank, since no Australian was made aware of its position during its voyage, but the most extreme fruitloops maintain it sank in international waters about 70 kilometres from Java.

This means it sank at least 1500 kilometres from Australia. To compare - the Titanic sank only 600 kilometres from Newfoundland.

Shortly after the sinking of the SIEV X, the Government passed tough new laws against queue jumpers that effectively put an end to these perilous voyages.

So previous governments - and specifically those who passed lax laws allowing queue jumpers into Australia -really were responsible for the loss of life on the SIEV X.

So did we learn the lesson of history? Of course not.

And those who do not learn from history, are destined to repeat it.