Refugees, Australia, & Boats

In an interview on the 7.30 Report a few nights ago, the Australian minister for Immigration, Chris Evans, made a strong point. Of the 438 asylum seekers onboard the Tampa, a Norwegian cargo ship which was refused entry to Australian waters in 2001, only one was not granted asylum by Australia or New Zealand.

If the majority of boatpeople are eventually granted asylum in Australia, and if Australia really wants to do something to stop people-smugglers, then there exists a smart way in which we could do so. Currently, asylum seekers pay smugglers tens of thousands of dollars to ferry them through South East Asia or the Mediterranean. I'm not against this pur sei---they're only filling a need---but they tend to do nasty things to their passengers from time to time. They don't observe Duty of Care.

If Australia ends up giving asylum seekers refuge, and if we don't like people-smugglers, then why doesn't Australia's government enter the market, and set a price on the processing/transportation of asylum seekers? Presumably, a price could be reached that would be high enough to limit numbers to an absorb-able figure, and similarly undercut people smugglers. If this was coupled with very strong policy against people smugglers (like sinking their boats), they wouldn't be able to reduce their price.

Isn't that pragmatic?