Jason Morrison

Spare boats showing up at Christmas Island over the weekend taken by Shazza.

The SMH seems outraged that Australia is spending more money on lifeboats to send people back to Indonesia. 

The tone of their report makes you think they think this is all a waste of money:

The Abbott government has tripled the amount of money spent on the large orange lifeboats used to tow back asylum seekers breaching Australian waters to Indonesia to $7.5 million as part of its tough border control policy.

The figure, to be revealed at an estimates hearing on Friday, is $5 million more than the initial $2.5 million allocated to purchase lifeboats in January.

It is believed each lifeboat costs about $200,000, which means the lifeboat fleet has increased from 12 boats to about 37 boats, each of which are only used once.

OK - Let’s contrast that $7.5 million to the $1.235 billion The Audit Office determined was spent on detention just two years ago 

And that omits the projected hundreds of millions in decades of welfare “entitlements” and Medicare payments for people illegally showing up.

What's a few more orange boats between friends? Australia is still well in front and by the way, how long has it been since a boat arrived?

Strange what gets them outraged at Fairfax.