A fat lot that it will do in reality.
In international waters we have no right over the boats. They can sail as many as they want to from Indo and there is stuff all that we can do to prevent it.
As soon as they enter into Australian waters they become our responsibility thru international law.
Where do we turn them away to? Let them drown in the open ocean? Imagine the international rucus if we towed a boat back outside of our waters and it then sank killing all on board...
I imagine that once a boat enters Aussie waters, it will mysteriously start to develop poblems and start sinking requiring all on board to be rescued by Aussie authorites.
Once the boats are in international waters there is realistically nothing we can do to prevent the people from ending up here.
They have to be stopped at the indonesian end, and given Ms Megawhati's lack of desire for helping us, there is fat chance of that.