Leftists and Europeans derided it as a violation of human rights. Now I be many are secretly wishing they had implemented it.
This is hard to say - under "Operation Sovereign Borders" all boat arrivals are military secrets, so there's not much data on arrivals except what the government announces. The Australian navy has literally towed back boats in defiance of international laws (Wikipedia: "In August 2015, minister Dutton stated that since December 2013, 633 people on 20 vessels have been subject to turnback operations, including a boat from Vietnam in July), so at least on that front the boats haven't been quite stopped (they just don't go all the way any more).
And as for the violation of human rights: you have a right to seek asylum. You're conveniently forgetting that people who have been placed on Nauru by the Australian government have been murdered and raped, completely unnecessary.
Quote Wikipedia again:
>In 2015, several staff members from the detention centre wrote an open letter claiming that multiple instances of sexual abuse against women and children had occurred.[6] The letter claimed that the Australian government had been aware of these abuses for over 18 months.[7] This letter added weight to the Moss review which found it possible that "guards had traded marijuana for sexual favours with asylum seeker children".[8] [9][10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru_Regional_Processing_Cent...
We can't really judge the situation there because journalists or international observers are not allowed in.
We do know that IMAs have significantly decreased. As the department reports on the numbers in detention[1] (See figure 1)
The ABC also kept a log of all reports[2]
1) http://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/st...
2) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-25/log-of-boat-arrivals-a...
That and the big ocean lying between them and everyone else.
You do know that they use to fly to Indonesia, burn their passport and pay for a boat to take them from there to Australia
My point is that the difficulty in making the journey is a major factor. So its not clear cut in deciding how much credit should be assigned to Australia's policy of overseas processing centers.
And the Schengen external border is particularly porous in Greece towards Turkey, because people can cross from Bodrum to Kos in any toy boat. And they will. Then there's also the traffic towards Lambedusa of Italy from Libya, and many other somewhat more difficult routes, but the idea is the same: bypass any border controls, and you can't be sent back.
Of course, a number will drown trying these crossings, but by the time they are about to depart for this hop, they have already paid thousands of $ to traffickers, and if they choose not to try, they've lost their money for nothing.
And once people are in Kos, Greece is not very interested in enforcing the Dublin protocol, and the people are free to move on towards their preferred target countries (Germany, Nordic countries, and UK; that latter one still has border controls at English Channel as they are not in Schengen).
Nothing will stop this migration except EU-wide declaration that you can't get in as a spontaneous asylum seeker, you have to come via camp where your application is processed -- much like Australia.
This is a very hard decision for EU leaders to make, as there has been so much grandstanding about the humanitarian superiority of EU countries (e.g. towards Australia). However, if nothing is done, this migration is the end of EU.
Russia may yet decide to mix things up further by enabling transit of asylum seekers - it would be an even straighter and cheaper route to Finnish and Norwegian borders, and people wouldn't need to pass through the fairly hostile nations in Balkans. And then the only option for Finland and Norway would be to permanently close the border to Russia for all passengers.
1 http://neurope.eu/article/russia-is-using-asylum-seekers-to-...
But Russia has here a great chance of miscalculating and increasing pressure, making Finland close the border and even move towards NATO membership.