The arrival last week of a boat carrying 24 potential asylum seekers, and possibly another one carrying 13, has sent Peter Dutton into his standard boat arrivals scare mode.

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Dutton says "now we've warned about this for some time, all of the core factors like releasing the 149 criminals (under the High Court ruling), watering down Operation Sovereign Borders.

That sends a clear message to the people smugglers, and that's when they get back in business, and that's when we see boat arrivals".

While Dutton has again warned of an armada of boats coming at us, that is highly unlikely.

For all practical purposes, both major parties now have identical policies on boat arrivals.

Both parties are committed to maintaining turnback policy under Operation Sovereign Borders, offshore processing on Nauru and the non-settlement of these asylum seekers in Australia.

Once the most recent boat arrivals, who are apparently from India and Pakistan which is unusual, realise they have been tricked by people smugglers, word will get back to their communities that coming to Australia by boat will not give them a favourable outcome.

The really extraordinary thing about the current hysteria about a tiny number of boat arrivals is that it ignores the fact we now have almost 110,000 asylum seekers living in Australia with........

© Canberra Times