The myth is repeated time and time again that Scott Morrison ,the Coalition and Operation Sovereign Borders stopped the boats. They did not. But if you tell a lie time and time again people will believe it. It is a marketing trick that Scott Morrison has learned well.

I expect that many in the media will continue the myth about the stopping of the boats. Perhaps being careless in the first place the media finds it embarrassing to now admit error.

S_orry if I keep repeating myself but facts are facts. As a US Senator put it ’everyone is entitled to their own opinions but no one is entitled to their own facts'_

Peter Hughes and I posted two blogs in September 2015 (Slogans versus facts on boat arrivals Part 1 and Part 2) that pointed out first, that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison kept the door open for tens of thousands of boat people arrivals by opposing legislation that would have enabled implementation of the Malaysia Arrangement of September 2011. Secondly, we pointed out that Tony Abbotts and Scott Morrisons role in stopping the boats was at the margins and vastly overstated.

Since then Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton and others have continued their spin about how they stopped the boats. Unfortunately, our mainstream media were duped in the first place by uncritically accepting the Coalitions line in the confused period of the changeover of governments and in the drama and secrecy surrounding a small number of turnbacks.

Our main conclusion in those posts was that:

By the time Operation Sovereign Borders geared up for its first boat turn backs on 19 December 2013, the number of boat arrivals was down from 48 in July 2013 to only seven in December 2013. OSB applied only to the tail end of the boat drama. The game-changer was Kevin Rudds announcement in July 2013 that people arriving by boat after that time would not be settled in Australia.

Arguably boat turn backs would not have been successful at all without the July 2013 decision. For example, the Navy and Customs were able to turn back three boats in December 2013 after the introduction of OSB. Its hard to believe that it would have been physically possible to turn back 48 boats if they had continued at the monthly rate that occurred in July 2013 and that Indonesia would have quietly acquiesced.

Furthermore Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison in Opposition gave the green light to people smugglers by opposing the implementation of the Malaysia Arrangement in September 2011. Following the defeat in the Parliament of legislation to give effect to the Malaysian Arrangement there was a dramatic increase in boat arrivals. Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison gave the green light to people smugglers to really step up their activities

Scott Morrison and his hero Tony Abbott did not stop the boats. Yet the myth persists that they did.

And to top off all this we know that asylum seekers are now pouring into Australia in record numbers. Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton are failing comprehensively to protect our borders. If only they would stop the political scare mongering and do the job of looking after the nation’s interest.

Their behaviour is a striking illustration of their view that if you keep repeating a lie long enough some people will believe it, including the media.

For Scott Morrison then and now the guiding political view was that ’the more boats that come the better’. Advertising the re opening of Christmas Island is a not very subtle invitation to people smugglers to have a go. He is desperate and would politically welcome boar arrivals.

Is this the behaviour we want from a Prime Minister?