The ABC's Alan Sunderland recently claimed that

The ABC's inability to focus on the real issue here is like watching one in every 50 planes crash on take-off or landing at Sydney airport, ignoring the details of that story, and then doing a detailed investigation into whether airport officials used unreasonable force on passengers after deciding to prevent them from flying. Scott Morrison recently stated that there have recently been 50,000 illegal arrivals on more than 800 boats and in excess of 1100 deaths at sea. What the ABC should have concluded from this, or completely independently of this, is that no regulated form of transport would be allowed to remain in operation with such an appalling safety record. Imagine if one in 50 flights taking off or landing at Sydney airport crashed. About 50 flights take off or land every hour. 2% would be roughly one crash every hour. If this happened there would be an immediate ban on take offs and landings until the source of the problem was identified and corrected. But the ABC chooses not to focus on this fact, which is the overriding reality. This asylum seeker business model relies on finding the cheapest boats to maximise profit, because the boats can never be recovered for re-use by the business operator. The business model also does not necessarily suffer if the boat sinks, because money is paid in advance of departure. Since the cheap boat incentive of the business model CANNOT be eliminated, the business model MUST be shut down. The only other option would be to open a ferry service between Java and Christmas Island for asylum seekers with no identity documents. Illegal immigrants could also use the same ferry because proof of identity would not be required. Whilst this might certainly be very humane for those benefitting from it, it would represent the end of border control. I estimate that the time taken to implement legislation to end border control in this way would be longer than the time taken for the next boat to sink. Hence the risk management logic supporting shutting down the business model is overwhelmingly evident. This truth is simple, but the ABC’s Editorial Policy seems distracted by other issues. When is the Public Inquiry into the ABC's Editorial Policy going to begin?