Pleasant Island: Old name for Nauru...

East indies: Old name for used mostly for Indonesia...

Tony Abbott's 'tow back' policy has been quietly rebuffed by Indonesia and can now be expected to be sidelined, writes Damien Kingsbury.

There are a number of ways to interpret Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's failure to raise his asylum seeker 'tow back' proposal in his meeting with Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, but none of them are positive. In short, the 'tow back' proposal was and, in so far as it continues to be defended by Opposition speakers, remains a policy disaster.

In a political contest increasingly characterised by who has the metaphorically hairiest chest, 'Tow Back Tony' has been a tough guy par excellence. Not only had Abbott taken the hardest line on asylum seekers, he went that one step further by not just saying that a government under his leadership would implement asylum seeker deterrent policies, but it would physically take asylum seeker boats back to the territorial waters they came from where circumstances allowed.

The underlying assumption about this position - if one puts aside the unresolved humanitarian issues around blaming refugees for being refugees - is that asylum seekers are Indonesia's problem, not Australia's. However, given that the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers who transit via Indonesia intend to come to Australia, the Indonesian government has a rather different view.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4317894.html?WT.svl=theDrum

The business lobby says the Federal Government should not have commissioned Treasury analysis of just three Coalition tax policies.

The Treasurer's office commissioned and then leaked Treasury analysis of three coalition tax policies it said would cost business $4.6 billion in the first year.

Labor used the Treasury costings to attack the Opposition, which prompted outrage from the Opposition about why the work was done and how it came to be published in Fairfax newspapers.

But business is not too concerned, because, as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says, the analysis did not include the Coalition's pledge to cut the carbon tax and the mining tax.

The group's director of economics and industry policy, Greg Evans, says the analysis should have been broader.

"You need to look at tax in totality," he said.

"We'll be looking at the complete tax policies of both parties and clearly some of the major elements of that including the abolition of the carbon tax and mining tax which we have opposed."

The Opposition says the Government has "serious questions to answer" over the commissioning and leak of the analysis.

Yesterday, Liberal MP Jamie Briggs accused the Government of "trashing the reputation" of Treasury by leaking the costings.

But Prime Minister Julia Gillard defended the decision to release the Treasury analysis.

"It's very routine for Treasury to cost policies that are being talked about in the public domain," she said yesterday.

"No amount of spin from the Opposition gets away from the simple fact that three of the policies they say they are committed to have been costed, and they will cost businesses more than $4 billion in the first year."

The three policies analysed by the Treasury include the Coalition's paid parental leave policy, which is funded by a 1.5 per cent levy on big businesses, its decision to axe the instant asset write off for small businesses that was part of the carbon tax package, and its commitment to get rid of the loss "carry back" provisions that were introduced as part of the mining tax.

It reportedly showed that businesses would lose $17.2 billion over the forward estimates once the changes were introduced.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-07/business-lobby-weighs-in-on-leaked-coalition-costings/4357254

The latest snapshot of Australia's biggest companies says they are "increasingly comfortable" with the Federal Government's carbon pricing scheme.

Property companies and banks have been identified as the strongest performers in the latest report card on Australia's carbon pricing scheme.

The carbon disclosure project assesses the top 200 companies in Australia and New Zealand, scrutinising their greenhouse gas emissions, as well as their climate change strategies.

The best performers include the Commonwealth Property Office Fund, National Australia Bank and Mirvac, as well as Qantas, News Corporation and Woolworths.

However, the report also identifies a low number of companies still in the high emitting sectors and some which refused to disclose their data, including Lend Lease, BlueScope Steel and Iluka

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-07/carbon-report-shows-business-concerns-easing/4358520

A former defence force chief has warned the Coalition's policy to turn back asylum seeker boats could amount to an act of piracy.

The Opposition says one of its options to "stop the boats" will be to turn back vessels in international waters where it is safe to do so.

But Admiral Chris Barrie says if Australian authorities try to board and redirect a boat found in international waters, that could break international piracy law.

"The question will be, is that vessel in some sort of peril or is it not?" he said.

"If the boat itself is well-found and it appears to be exercising freedoms of the high seas, a right to board is very much constrained under international law, and there would be some circumstances, I guess, where it might become an act of piracy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-11/turning-back-boats-an-act-of-piracy/4623590

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Not only it could break the law, it would break the law...

Tony Abbott is a populist idiot!... See toon at top.