THE tide has officially turned on the people-smuggling trade with the number of asylum seekers returned from Australian detention or offshore processing centres now outstripping the total number of those seeking to come by boat since the election.
In what is being described as a turning point in the Abbott government’s pledge to shut down the people-smuggling racket, the total number of asylum seekers either in detention or detained in the community has begun to go backward for the first time in six years.
