Hey Australia, seeking asylum is not illegal.

Seeking asylum is not illegal.
Locking people up indefinitely on island prisons with little food & water and inadequate medical facilities.
Is.
The current Australian government knows this by trying to pass legislature that would deem their intentionally illegal actions, unpublishable.

The guilty are gifting themselves a "stay out of jail free" card.

Australia has more legal non maritime arrivals (planes etc) compared to the pitiful amount of non-legal irregular maritime arrivals (boat people). Yet those genuine refugees who lost the eeny-meeny immigration minister lottery, got to spend 5 years in hell while the winners who arrived on the same boat as them, also genuine refugees, got to set up in Australia, open business, find work.
The only difference is the immigration minister needed bodies in his hell camps to appear to be hardline.

They didn't stop the boats, they only stopped some boats going to certain places. In other words a cruel, pathetic farce by a cruel pathetic administration. Desperate to harvest the bigot vote.
Soon there will be nobody left to stand up when this administration comes for you.