By Michael Gordon
Asylum seekers who feel compelled to risk their lives on leaky boats aren't the only ones taking a big punt under Julia Gillard's strategy to torpedo the people-smuggling industry.
If it works, she will have solved one of the biggest problems that led the Rudd government to ''lose its way'' and has sapped her own administration of energy, direction and momentum.
New asylum seeker policy aims to stop the boats.
There is also the possibility of a humanitarian dividend - fewer people at risk of dying at sea and better treatment of, and outcomes overall for, those seeking asylum in this region.
But it remains a big if. Chris Bowen is banking on the message hitting home that the odds of paying a people smuggler and being resettled in Australia after being found to be a refugee are now simply too long to contemplate.
He is also banking on Malaysia delivering on its side of the bargain and affording those it accepts ''dignity and respect'' - something hard to envisage if they are treated the same way as the 90,000-plus asylum seekers already in that country.
He is also hoping to avoid a repetition on Manus island of what occurred under John Howard's Pacific Solution - refugees driven to self-harm and mental ill-health by being held indefinitely on a remote island.
If the new approach hasn't had the desired effect of deterring people from getting on boats already, Bowen is confident that it will when the first plane loads of asylum seekers take off for Malaysia in a few weeks.
The opposition criticises the government for implementing a version of ''Howard lite'', but the new strategy has one advantage that the Pacific Solution never had - the so-called ''people swap'' is a genuine attempt at finding a regional solution.
But it is also more complicated because the approach has two tiers. Aside from the Malaysia deal, the government is re-opening the centre on Manus, so that two very different scenarios face those sent to each place.
One one level, Manus gives the approach a degree of policy integrity because Bowen can argue all boat arrivals from May 7 will be processed in third countries. On another, it has the potential to undermine the whole project because Australia will have little option but to accept those on Manus found to be refugees if other countries choose not to take them - as happened with those on Manus and Nauru under John Howard's policy.
We will know soon enough whether the policy has stopped the boats. The price paid to achieve this end will take longer to discern.